


Renegade's Legacy: Trampled Underfoot

by reddawnrumble



Series: Renegade's Legacy 'Verse [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2017-11-16 20:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reddawnrumble/pseuds/reddawnrumble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam strikes out on his own to uncover exactly what happened in Memphis. Struggling with his memories, his mission is obstructed by the appearance of his last living relatives, Samuel and Gwen Campbell. There's little compassion to be had, but enough camaraderie to be shared as Sam begins to discover the treachery of his Soullessness, and just how deep his depravity ran.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_January 3 rd, 2011_

_Singer Salvage Yard, Sioux Falls, South Dakota_

Back propped against the windshield of the Impala, Sam watched the stars.

            Distant, cold, shivering pinpricks of light. He could relate. He was floating, not sinking or swimming, just content…if content could be applied without emotional attachment. He was here, sitting on the car, hands in his pockets—and he was a hundred miles away, looking for their next case, sorting out maps and patterns. It was the only thing that mattered at this point, it was as much a part of him as the blood beating under his skin. The most real, alive part of him.

            He knew Dean was inside, cooking something up with Bobby. Probably something dangerous, stupid or counterproductive. That bothered Sam as far as the hunting went, because more often than not Dean was distracted these days, and a distracted hunter wasn’t a hunter on top of the job. Him and Bobby both—they were open books of caring. Like sunspots against Sam’s cold glow. Suns and stars. Sam was wearing out trying to keep up appearances around the two of them.

            The door to Bobby’s house banged shut somewhere behind him. Sam puffed his cheeks full of air, leaning his head against the windshield. He expected it when he heard Dean stalking over to join him, boots crunching through the gravel. What caught him off guard and brought on a whiplash of animalistic surprise was Dean’s hand grabbing his arm, spinning him around on the hood

            “Get off.” Dean growled.

            “Dean—”

            “I said, get off my car!”

            Sam obliged, hopping down, giving Dean a cock-eyed look. He hadn’t done anything to warrant the anger in Dean’s haggard face. He hadn’t pushed his buttons, hadn’t made a move to illicit this kind of an emotional backlash. But here it was, standing right in front of him. Dean, angry. Dean, broken. The more time Sam spent with him, the less useful Dean seemed as hunter. This obsession was getting out of control.

            “You still in there, Sam?” Dean asked quietly, firmly.

            Sam raised an eyebrow. “I think we both know the answer to that, Dean.”

            Dean took a step closer. He wasn’t going to let this go, not this time. Sam could see it in his eyes. “I need to know a piece’a you is still in there, Sammy, or what the hell am I tryin’ to do, here?”

            Sam blew out a breath into the chilly air and rocked his head back. “What do you want from me, Dean?”

                        “I want some _emotion_ outta you! I want you to feel this!” He grabbed the back of Sam’s neck, and looked him dead-on in the eyes, something Sam knew Dean had done a lot when they were kids. His way of letting Sam know he was there, he wasn’t going anywhere. Through freak thunderstorms, times when their dad wasn’t around, when Sam was just a little kid. It went through Sam’s head like crunching numbers. Didn’t register any deeper than that, and Dean seemed to get that, because he grabbed Sam by his arms and pulled him in, hugging him hard. “Dammit, Sam, _feel_! Feel something, feel _anything_!”

                        Sam stayed unresponsive to Dean’s embrace, rolling his eyes up until he could see the stars. Dean’s theatrics were seriously wearing on him. “I feel…you crushing my ribcage.”

            Dean’s reaction? Hold tighter. Typical. Now that he had his blinders off, Sam could see Dean’s flaws like they’d been stripped out and personified, cut into perfect contrast. And man, did he have a lot of flaws. It was so bad sometimes that the black almost completely blotted out the white, like soot on snow. And the worst part was the huge gaping hole in his focus that Dean had when it came to his Sammy. His brother—Sam wasn’t even that person anymore. It was like Calvin and a Duplicate machine, a separation of self from self. A part that Sam didn’t want inside of him anymore, because it meant having that same weak spot that turned Dean into this sieve of raw _feeling_ almost every single day.

            It was pitiful. Sick. And they said _he_ was the one with the problem.

            “Sammy, I need your help. I can’t do this alone.”

            Sam’s kickback response: fake it. Fake the emotion, pretend like he cared, give Dean the fix he wanted to satisfy his emotional needs, and then they could get back to what was really important: hunting. The only place where they were on the same page, still speaking the same language. The only thing keeping Sam around.

            He slung up an arm and hugged Dean back. “I’m not going anywhere, Dean.”

            Dean stiffened and yanked back, shoving out from under Sam’s grip, giving him this look like he wanted to skin him alive. “You bastard.”

            Sam smirked. “Relax, Dean. It was a _joke_.”

            “You’re sick, you know that?” Dean paced away, rubbing a hand across his unshaven jaw. “Man, you’re a mess. You’re a sick, freaking _monster_.”

            That hit hard, jolting a memory inside of Sam.

            _Don’t say that to me!...Don’t_ you _say that to me._

            “Gnnh!” Sam jerked awake in the front seat of the Impala, sitting up straight, spitting out breath through his open mouth. “Gah.” Fissures of pain zigzagged through his skull, splitting it open. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then pressed the heels of his hands above his eyes. “ _Ahhh_ …”

            Fighting these headaches on willpower alone was like trying to stop a drill going into his head with a piece of cardboard. Ineffective and probably pretty stupid. It wouldn’t take him ten minutes to walk into a drugstore, buy something and at least cut the corner on these migraines.

            After Vermilion, he couldn’t talk himself into it. It wasn’t a matter of addiction so much as nothing he could buy for a cheap twenty bucks at a Walgreens was going to do anything for a pain that went this deep. It was like having a pongee stick buried to the roots in his head, and he knew for a fact Advil couldn’t top that. _Six_ oxycontin had left him strung out but still in so much pain he’d dragged himself to the toilet and thrown up before he’d gotten sober.

            And the way Dean had been looking at him after that, like Sam was some kind of hopped up timebomb waiting to go off…

            He’d learned that these headaches wore off a little bit if he gave it time. So he gave it time; sat slumped over the steering wheel of the vintage pickup truck Bobby had loaned him when he’d left the salvage yard two days ago. Eventually the white fire burned itself out behind his eyes, and Sam sat up, a little dizzy but okay. For now.

            Okay, now that the memories had climbed back behind the wall.

            Arms draped over the steering wheel, Sam squinted against the rising sun, staring across the river toward Memphis. The city was highlighted with gold, a jungle of steel and glass and fog. Sam was parked under the overpass of Forty, commuters rumbling over his head on their way into the city for work.

            Sam’s next job was in there, too. Somewhere. He wasn’t really sure where it was, or what he was looking for. He had vague snatches, things he’d remember when he flashed back to the hunts he’d done while he was soulless. He knew there was a girl—a girl asking him for help. And an older woman was involved. Maybe. But that was all he’d managed to piece together.

             There was an honest truth in all of this that was stuck in his gut, trying to claw its way out, and Sam shoved it down. He started the truck, the vibration of an old but well-kept engine shimmying up his arms. He pulled out from under the bridge and onto the nearest on-ramp, heading into the city.

            He was starting mostly from scratch, here, along with the vague clues and hints that had come unburied from behind the wall. Driving into Memphis, windows rolled up against the cold, he figured this was the last few seconds of peace and quiet he’d get. So he held on to it.

            Before leaving Sioux Falls, he’d pulled Dean aside and told him two things: to watch his back, and to not get in touch. Dean had bucked him on that one—Dean always did. Something their dad had taught them when they were kids: always keep each other in your line of sight. That rule had haunted Sam his first year at Stanford, woken him up in the middle of the night reaching for his phone after nightmares that made him think Dean was in danger. After those had stopped, the silence with his family had been easier to ignore. But a part of it had always been there, sitting on Sam’s chest, a cosmic taunt telling him that not only had his dad kicked him out, but Dean had, too.

            Like Dean hadn’t followed him out onto the street that night. Grabbed his arm. Spun him around. “Sam. Don’t do this, man, don’t go.”

            “You heard dad! He told me if I walked out, that was it.” Sam had spread his arms out in a gesture of finality. “This is _it_ , Dean.”

            “Not for you and me, Sam. I’m not letting you walk out on us like this.”

            But Sam had. He’d turned and walked down the road.

            “Sam—Sammy! Hey! You can turn your back on dad, little brother. Don’t turn your back on me!” Dean had called after him. “Sam, you know what’s out there! Don’t go after this by yourself!”

            “Sorry, Dean.” Sam had muttered under his breath, keeping his eyes ahead. “I’m not gonna live this life.”

            “Sam! Dammit, come back! We can still work this out!” Dean had sounded like his world was cracking into pieces. “Sam, _please_ , dude, come _on_!”

            He’d pretended not to hear Dean fall onto his knees in the middle of the street, smacking his hands flat down on the pavement. “ _Sam_!”

            He shook off a memory that wasn’t as dangerous as anything behind the wall, but still wasn’t pleasant, and gave his cell phone a cursory check. No calls or texts from Dean, which was a surprise and a relief. Sam knew from experience that asking Dean not to do something was usually as effective as forcing his hand, so the prolonged radio silence scratched under Sam’s skin a little bit, made him uneasy. He shoved that down, ran a hand along his jaw and tried to get his head in the game, start planning.

            That he’d been in Memphis for more than twenty-four hours, before…that was a given. The flashes Sam saw told him that much, staggered glimpses of daytime and nighttime in different places, with different people. He didn’t have a tangible starting point, but he figured someone must have seen him, at some point or another. He’d just have to drive until he found some place that looked familiar.

            Easier said than done. Sam cruised the streets in rush-hour traffic, looking for landmarks that stood out as something other than pictures from books or drive-bys during other hunts. Nothing in the webwork of streets and buildings made any sense, and by noon Sam was so frustrated he felt like he was going to kick the cab of the truck apart. He stopped outside of a retro, midtown café and headed inside.

            The place was warm in the beginning of January, laid-back, set up with bar stools and lounge couches. While he waited for his order, Sam leaned one elbow on the counter, taking stock of the place, noting the two exits and one window and the television on the wall. Pretty cozy place; there were a dozen like it around Stanford, and Sam remembered spending his weekends on these kinds of couches, Jessica sitting across from him, tangling her feet up in his while they did research for their classes.

            He remembered dragging Dean into one of these places once, too. He’d complained about everything—the food, the drinks, the modestly-dressed girls behind the counter. Then he’d gotten bored and started flicking the discarded raisins from Sam’s salad into his water glass.

            Those memories made it hard to sit down and eat his club sandwich alone, but Sam resisted the urge to check his phone. He’d have heard if someone was calling him. Especially because, being Zeppelin’s ‘Ramblin’ On’, his ringtone for Dean was pretty hard to block out.

            Sam watched the news instead; word on strange deaths that hunters could chalk up to monster slayings were becoming fewer and further between. In fact, after that new breed of monster had cropped up in Vermilion—and then been stomped out just as fast by a Shapeshifter posing as Sam and Dean’s father—there hadn’t been much activity at all. It made Sam a little nervous.

            He rested his chin on the edge of the tall plastic cup the barista had given him, and let his eyes swivel around the room, taking everything in again—finally landing on a poster board behind the counter, plastered with pictures of patrons that looked like they’d been taken with pretty cheap cameras. Sam smiled slightly, looking harder at the faces—

            Flashed.

Nighttime. Hookah smoke. A totally different atmosphere. Sweaty bodies clustered together. A very drunk girl with her arm around his waist.

            Sam almost kicked his chair over getting up, sliding around the counter to look at the collage. The picture was grainy, dollar-store quality…but there was no mistaking the face he saw every time he looked in the mirror. It was him, reluctant, pulling back at the same second the camera snapped the picture, trapping his soulless face forever, right here in this café.

            Sam felt a rolling punch to his insides, wondering if it was casual circumstance or memory that had brought him right back here. How much was seeping through without him even realizing it?

            He turned to the barista, who smiled blankly at him. “Excuse me. Can you tell me when this picture was taken?” He pointed to the photograph of him and that girl—her face triggering something deep in his head.

            “About…mmm, seven or eight months ago?” The barista said. “We were having a senior’s night in, and…things got a little wild.”

            Seven or eight months. Right before he’d reconnected with Dean. Sam felt a feather-light brush of uneasiness on his neck. “And that girl. Any idea where she is?”

            “No, sorry. We don’t keep track.”

            “Okay, what about that guy? Where was he staying?”

            The girl looked from the picture to Sam and back again, frowning. “Hey. Isn’t that you?”

            Sam smiled tautly. “Twin brother.”

            “Right.” She nodded. “Yeah, his address, we did get.” She pulled a scrap of paper from behind the cash register and handed it to him. “Left this with one of our girls. Said she could come around any time he wanted.” She pitched her voice low. “No offense, but your brother’s kind of an ass.”

            Sam tucked the paper into his back pocket. “What makes you say that?”

            “Well, he was obviously _with_ the girl in that picture, you know? But he was still asking one of my friends over to his place.” She straightened up.

            “Yeah. He’s a…” Sam trailed off, looking for a good word. Couldn’t find one. “Sorry. For everything he did.”

            “Not your fault.” The barista shrugged and sauntered away, and Sam grabbed the rest of his sandwich on the way out, wondering why a step in the right direction felt like backsliding on his first day on the job.

 

 

            King’s Ridge Motel. It was a pretty off-the-cuff place, a hole in the wall on the far outskirts of Memphis. Not really a surprise for Sam when he pulled up outside, double-and-triple-checked the address on the slip of paper the barista had given him, then got out. Either some part of him remembered this, too, or else his logical half just wasn’t surprised he’d gone this shady when he was soulless. Place really did look like a crack-house or a brothel.

            The guy behind the front desk in the dingy, mildewed lobby had a beer gut and a cigarette dangling out of the side of his mouth like a permanent cancerous growth. He stared at Sam with bleary eyes as he walked in, hands in his pockets.

            “Hi, my name’s…” Sam trailed off, brain scrambling for a lie. “Uh, Zappa. And I’m, uh, with the—”

            “Bull.” The guy croaked, and Sam straightened, a little surprised. “You’re that Deacon kid, stayed in four-oh-six last year.”

            Sam decided to go with it. “Right, sorry. Zappa’s my nickname, guess I got…” He let that trail off, too. “Doesn’t matter. Listen, uh, last time I was here, I…got pretty wasted.”

            “Damn right you did.” The guy laughed, shaking ash off the end of his cigarette. Sam stared at the flickering embers inside the roll, then shook his head and met the man’s bloodshot gaze.

            “I was just wondering…if I brought a girl here with me. She’d be about this tall,” Sam held a hand at chest height. “Blonde?”

            “Saw lotsa women with you, kid. No blondes.”

            Sam didn’t know whether or not to be relieved. “Well, could I maybe see the room I stayed in? Y’know, trying to put together the pieces now that I’m…” The next word stuck in his throat. “Sober.”

            “Eh.” The guy bent down and started fishing under the counter, pulling up a ring with a key on it. “Gonna cost ya. Forty a night.”

            Sam had been expecting that. He laid three hundred on the counter and grabbed the key. “You’re sure this is the same room?”

            “Wouldn’t forget it. Haven’t filled it since. Needs some fixin’ up after what you done to it, and we just don’t have the money.” The guy slouched over to a stool on the far end of the counter. “Should have you pay up.”

            Sam headed for the staircase before the man could make good on that thought.

            Four-oh-six was at the end of a hallway, which made sense; it was always a good idea to have empty rooms on both sides of you, if you couldn’t get the room at the end. Less likely for people to overhear things they shouldn’t. It figured Sam had remembered that when he was soulless.

            He stuck the key in the lock and leaned his head against the door for a second, not really sure what he was looking for, here. That girl. Answers. A reason for this rock-hard feeling in his gut like this was bigger than what it looked like on the surface.

            Sam shoved the door open and stepped inside.

            Stopped.

            Stared, throat constricting. Couldn’t swallow. Move. Think.

            He couldn’t have been sober when this happened.

            It looked like a scene out of _The Number Twenty-Three_. Words, on every wall. Some of them carved on, others scrawled in marker. Bed overturned, sheets ripped off. It seemed the place hadn’t been touched since he’d been here more than half a year ago. And this was definitely all him—his handwriting, his carving style. Chunks of plaster had been kicked in, fist-sized holes in the wall. Gouges on the rotten bathroom door. Blood on the bathroom tiles.

            And he’d done it. All of it. It wasn’t a memory so much as a gut instinct that told him that. He’d ransacked this place.

            The question was, _why_?

            Sam shed his jacket and looked around for something, some sort of starting point that he could use to unravel what was written here. But when he looked at the walls for more than a few seconds, it gave him a shooting pain similar to his headaches, like his brain was trying to take the scrambled words in all at once and decode them.

            And then his eyes found it: one word, scarred in the wall, infected with mold, standing out white and jagged like a broken bone from torn skin:

            _DEAN_.

In huge letters, covering marker writing. He’d missed it the first few times he’d looked because the four letters were so spread out.

            But he’d been conscious. Aware enough of his brother’s existence to write his name in with the rest of the poisoned, alcoholic ranting. Sam walked over, dipped his fingers into the groove and rested his temple on the wall, looking along its length—looking for something else that would stand out.

            And it did.

It took him all day, pacing, not going out for more food, splashing water from the rusted pipes in the bathroom onto his face, his headache coming back slowly but with a vengeance—but he finally found a tiny pattern. He was sitting with his back against the wall, one leg stretched out, the other propped to his chest, staring up at the carving of Dean’s name and tapping his fingers sporadically on the wooden floor; and it jumped out at him, a name that looked familiar after all the reading. Sam tilted his head to one side, frowning, reading the word again. Then he shoved up onto his feet, walked over and laid his hand flat over it.

            “Annalise Stetson.” He said quietly, and the words tasted electric, bringing on a repressed emotion: guilt. Maybe something he’d expected to feel when he was here before, but it’d never come out of the woodwork.

            There was definitely something to that name, something important he was missing, and Sam knew where to go next. He threw his jacket back on, grabbed the keys and headed downstairs.

 

 

            Sam’s laptop was in the place it would see the least use: the front seat of the Impala. He’d left it, not because he didn’t need it, but because it might be an incentive for Dean to actually do some speed-research, if he had all of their favorite bookmarks right as his fingertips and didn’t have to wade through the bog of Google. Consequently, Sam’s only available resource was the public library, which was closed for the night by the time he got there.

            Rather than head back to the rank motel and try sleeping with the clear signs of his mental disparity glaring down on him like an overblown streetlight, Sam did the same thing he’d been doing for three days: he stretched out across the seat of the truck, which barely accommodated half of his lanky body, and he slept in there.

            Slept—barely. Woke up every half hour in shakes and sweats, clawing his way out of an endless black pit. Maybe Hell. Maybe something else. Sometimes it felt like his mind was trapped _inside_ the wall itself, keeping him pinned and chained between memories and reality. He returned to that in-between prison every time he slept.

            A wall. The Great Wall of Sam. That was crap. Wallpaper over plaster. Glass with veins. Smoke and mirrors. The wall was a window fogged up with the breath of his past and every time Sam wasn’t on guard against it, he was smudging through and catching glimpses of the light on the other side. The Hellfire.

            For whatever reason, it was strongest when his guard was down. When he wasn’t focused on a case, or when he was on the edges of sleep. So he was getting less and less sleep—less than Dean normally got, even, and that was saying something. Two hours a day, if he was even that lucky.

            This wasn’t any exception; Sam spent most of the night twisting around the cab, trying to get comfortable, bracing his back against the bench seat to calm the shakes. He remembered being a kid—maybe ten, eleven. Getting scared of something, what it was—not really important. Walking down into Bobby’s study, seeing Bobby still awake, poring over a lore book. Sam had crawled under the desk, curling up like a cat at Bobby’s feet.

“Boy, you’re too old for this.” Bobby had muttered, but he’d braced his foot on Sam’s back and started nudging him back and forth, slowly. Sam had huddled up tight and stayed down there, Bobby rubbing his boot up and down Sam’s back, until Sam had finally been lulled to sleep.

God, Sam figured he’d give anything not to be alone right now. Maybe it’d even be worth breaking radio silence. Not with Dean—if Dean heard one scrap of how yanked apart Sam was feeling, he’d be cruising at eighty-five for Memphis before Sam could get in the next word edgewise.

Sam pulled out his phone, one arm tucked behind his head, and let the cursor hover over Bobby’s name. Wavered, uncertain.

Called the number before he could change his mind.

Except he did, every time it rang; like picking petals off a daisy. Hang up. Stay on. Hang up, stay on. _Hang up_. Stay—

“Yeah?”

“Bobby.” Sam sighed out the name, not sure if he was relieved or more stressed. Three days. He’d made it three whole days.

“Sam?” Bobby’s tone pitched a little higher. “Thought you were keepin’ closed lines on this one, kid.”

“Trying to.” Sam replied. “I guess I just…needed someone to talk to.”

“Uh-huh. Talk to, not at?” Bobby said. “Guess that’s why you picked me for your date instead’a that idjit brother of yours.”

Sam half-smiled, closing his eyes. “I dunno, I was just sitting here thinking about when we used to stay at your house. Remember that time I crawled under your desk and you kicked me until I fell asleep?”

There was a long, slightly awkward pause. “I remember that happenin’ once or twice.” Bobby finally said.

Sam flipped over, propping his temple on his fist. “What about that talk we were supposed to have after Essex, Bobby? Remember that?”

“Sam, you all right?”

He squeezed his eyes shut as tight as his throat, right then. He needed so badly to drop out the distance between himself and the people he cared about. Back against the wall, already, just from being in that café, in this city, in that motel room.

“Not really sure. I just—” He couldn’t shake it, that gnawing in his gut, that feeling like something inside of his mind was splitting open. “Just needed to talk to you, I guess. Sorry.”

Bobby growled out a breath. “Don’t go apologizin’ to me, boy. And don’t you go off sayin’ some kinda goodbyes, either. You work this case and you come on back home, you hear me? If I find out you made one stop before you came back to my place, you and me’ll have some problems. Understand?”

Sam swallowed the planet-sized lump in his throat. “Yes, sir.”

“All right.” Bobby said gruffly. “Now you listen to me. Get some sleep, hit the ground runnin’ first thing in the mornin’. No problem’s so bad a good rest can’t help. And believe me, boy, you got a few month’s catchin’ up to do.”

The reminder nailed into Sam’s chest. He could tell Bobby he was having trouble sleeping, but that’d more than likely pull Bobby in his direction. Make him want to help, even fly out to Memphis. And that was the opposite of what Sam wanted. “Yes, sir.”

“All right.” Bobby cleared his throat. “Got some stuff I gotta take care of.”

“Right. No, that’s fine. Sorry for interrupting.” Sam said quickly.

“Sam?” Bobby said sharply, before Sam could hang up. “You call me if you need any-damn-thing, and I’ll see what I can do to help.”

In the darkness of the cab, Sam smiled. “I will.”

He hung up, flipped the phone over, pressed it to his lips and closed his eyes. For a few seconds—a few black silent heartbeats outside of the pit—he felt comforted.

Sam spent the rest of the night in between push and pull, waiting for sunrise and for the library to open.

He finally gave up, got out, walked a few blocks to a generic gas station and bought a cheap, watery cappuccino. By the time he got back, the parking lot was already starting to fill up, a car and a van parked on either side of the pickup, fencing it in.

Sam frowned, walked past and headed up the steps into the building.

The inside of the library felt stiff and quiet, like it was holding its breath. It’d already been open for fifteen minutes according to the clock on the wall, but it felt like no one had been inside for a few years.

Sam headed straight to the reference desk, where a middle-aged woman was clicking intently on her computer. Sam leaned crossed arms on the counter and waited for her to notice him.

After a few minutes, she slid a beady glance his way. “No beverages allowed inside the library.”

Sam looked down at the cappuccino, decided it wasn’t worth it, chucked the drink into the trash can beside the desk and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Could I use one of the computers, please?”

The woman sniffed. “I’m surprised a young man like you doesn’t have his _own_ brain machine.” She pulled a card off the lanyard around her neck and led him through a set of double doors and into the shelving part of the library. Sam hesitated just over the threshold, a wave of memory slamming him: stepping into this room, hands twitching, anxious, fidgety because there were too many people around. A hot, heavy hand on his shoulder. Someone talking in his ear.

“Coming?” The librarian snapped. Sam shook his hair from his eyes and hurried to join her, forehead creasing as he poked around the edges of the memory. Why _this_ library? What had he been looking for during his last visit? Same name? Different one?

The woman led him to a niche of computers in the back corner of the library, logged him into one and let herself back out. Sam sat staring at the screen, not really sure what to do next—then, finally, sucked it up and typed in the name: Annalise Stetson.

Something smashed on the shelves behind him; Sam swiveled around in the chair, shoulders hunching, and saw a stack of books tumble onto the floor. A husky, sharp voice muttered, “Oh. Son of a _bitch_.”

Sam knew that voice.

He swung up onto his feet, one hand against the bookshelf to brace himself, as the man walked around the corner and started picking up the books, muttering to himself. A short brunette woman scurried over to join him, and was reaching for a book when she saw Sam standing there, staring.

Her already-wide-eyes nearly dropped out of her head. “Oh, my God. _Sam_.”

“Gwen?” The name stuck in Sam’s throat.

Samuel Campbell looked up sharply at his youngest grandson.

A wicked smile crossed his face.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

_January 4 th, 2011_

_Public Library, Memphis, Tennessee_

Sam’s fight-or-flight reflexes kicked into overdrive.

Nothing good ever came out of his encounters with Samuel. Ever. That much, he knew. He _remembered_ it. But the man was between Sam and the only way out.

Running—not an option.

            Sam went for the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

            “Ho, there!” Samuel went for the draw, as well, but held up a hand to stop Sam. “Easy, son, _easy_.”

            “I am not,” Sam said, sharp and quiet and trying for calm, “Your _son_.”

            “Well, all right, then.” Samuel didn’t look at Gwen…like she wasn’t even there. The whole world shrank down and wrapped itself around Samuel and Sam. “Do we really wanna do this in here?”

            Sam didn’t want to do anything except bolt, and fast. But his way was still blocked and Samuel didn’t look in the mood to move. No fight; no flight.

            Amazingly, Sam’s brain fell back on a third option. Something he’d gotten pretty good at a few years back.

            He straightened up, loosened up his shoulders, jammed his hands into his pockets. “What do you want, Samuel?”

            “On a hunt.” Samuel’s eyes swept Sam from head to feet, calculating. “Something’s different about you, boy.”

            Sam’s eyes narrowed and he swallowed. “Got my _soul_ back.”

            “Huh. That asshole brother crammed it inside, did he?”

            “Samuel.” Gwen chided quietly, glancing over her shoulder. “We should do this _outside_.”

            Samuel rubbed his clean-shaven jaw, then picked up the tumble of books and lined them up on the shelf. He jerked his head at Sam. “You heard her. Outside, let’s go.”

            Sam didn’t remember everything about his grandfather. But he could tell from the brevity of the order that Samuel was used to Sam dodging in his footsteps. Sam choked down a bad taste in the back of his throat; soulless, he’d been less a partner and more of a weapon. Like the ugly, vicious dog you wanted kept at your side to scare your enemies and force their cooperation, but you didn’t want that dog lying under your table. Secretly, you were terrified of him. You wanted him chained up out of reach.

            Samuel punched through the library’s side door and stepped out into the alley, Gwen trotting on his heels, Sam behind them. Samuel turned to face him, hands on hips, and the anger gushed out of Sam like a broken dam.

            “What the hell are you doing here?” He snarled.

            “Working a case, what do you think?” Samuel swept the alley with a critical glance. “Where’s that brother of yours?”

            “Stop asking about Dean, and deal with _me_.”

            “No can do, son. See, that boy made a pretty sizeable threat against _my life_ last time I saw him.” Samuel said stiffly. “So forgive me for watching my back.”

            Sam shook his head slightly. “Dean’s not _here_.”

            Samuel arched an eyebrow, creasing his bald forehead. “He let you go on a hunt by _yourself_? Boy, I knew that kid was out of his head. Didn’t think it was that bad just yet, though.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “Look at you! Soul in the box one day, hell-bent on every damn case. Now, you’re the golden boy again? Soul ain’t somethin’ you can flip on and off like a switch. Either you’re the man I hunted with, or you’re that bird in the cage. Which one is it, Sam? Do you even know?”

            Sam lifted his chin. “I’ll take my chances with the birds, thanks.”

            Samuel gave him that once-over again, and shook his head. “Not so sure I buy that, myself. You got so much darkness in you, boy—that part doesn’t just go away. You wanna know the things you did when you were soulless? I’d tell you stories that’d curl that greasy hair of yours into knots.”

            “You sold us out to Crowley.” Sam snapped. “I don’t want _anything_ from you.”

            “I’m not the only sinner in this street, son. You wanna know what you almost did to your brother?”

            Sam shoved his grandfather in the chest, hard, hard enough to stagger him back against the opposite wall of the alley. Sam twisted away, yanked his hands back through his hair, then stabbed a finger at Samuel.

            “Don’t. Don’t talk about Dean.”

            Samuel’s eyes widened. “You don’t remember, do you?” When Sam just glared at him, breathing in staggered bursts, Samuel licked his lips with a sly grin. “You don’t remember anything.”

            “Bits and pieces.” Sam’s lips barely moved to form the words.

            “So, that’s your brother’s genius solution for a clean slate? Wipe your mind clean, start over with a fresh sample?” He chuckled. “Unbelievable. Must be that Winchester in you boys, keeps you from using your heads.”

            “You son of a bitch—!”

            “Hey!” Gwen stepped forward at the same time Sam did, wedging herself between the two men with a hand on each of their chests. “Enough, all right? _Enough_.”  She fisted up one hand and thumped Sam lightly on the chest. “Take a walk, Winchester.”

            Sam looked at her and Gwen nodded; Sam stepped back, shook his hair out of his eyes, turned and headed down the alley. He didn’t go far, just to the end, punched the side of the library and leaned his forehead against it. Cold sweat was breaking out on his forehead and his clammy hands were shaking. Like he was coming down off an adrenaline high. He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut; this was new.

            “Sam?” Gwen’s voice startled him; he rocked up straight, sliding his hand down the wall. Gwen was standing beside him, concern etched into her face. “Are you okay? You look like a mess, kid.”

            “Don’t call me that.” Sam wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

            Gwen rolled her eyes. “ _Sam_. You sure you’re fine?”

            “I’m awesome.” He looked past her; Samuel was facing away from them, down the far side of the alley, hands perched on hips. Even from this distance Sam could tell the man was pissed. “Why’d you stop us?”

            Gwen didn’t answer that. “I didn’t know, Sam. About him selling you two our to Crowley. I figured you just bailed after he had us all start working for that black-eyes.” She cut a furious glance toward Samuel. “Bastard lied to me, too.”

            “What did you _think_ he was doing?”

            “I don’t know, Sam. Maybe I never wanted to.” Gwen tousled a hand back through her hair, then looked up at him. “He doesn’t want me to tell you this, but I have a feeling you won’t be sticking around. And you need to watch your back.”

            Sam’s neck prickled. “What’s going on, Gwen?”

            She dragged in a deep breath. “I don’t know much. I wasn’t here, for that last hunt in Memphis.”

            “Wait, what?” Sam frowned. “Why not?”

            “You and Samuel, you cut Christian and Mark and me out. Wouldn’t let us come with.” Gwen shrugged. “We ended up chasing tails on a djinn case up north. Anyway, point is, Samuel’s just now filling me in, since I’m all he’s got. And he’s here to clean up from a case that went down about half a year ago.”

“The one we cut you out on.” Sam said, and Gwen tilted her head to one side in confirmation. Sam shifted. “What happened?”

“Samuel must have seen signs of something happening, something that told him the case was cropping up again. He moved shop down here a few days ago.”

“Great. What was the _case_?”

Gwen crossed her arms. “Samuel told me a name. Annalise—”

“Stetson.” Sam finished.

“You remember her?”

“Sort of.” Sam replied. “Anything yet?”

Gwen nodded at the library. “We were just looking up the family history.”

            “What’d you find?”

            “Not much, but I can tell you this: the girl’s lost a lot. Obituaries show her whole family is dead.”

            That sizzled and stuck in Sam’s brain as being important; he glanced at Samuel again. “Is she—nng!” A flash sparked behind Sam’s eyes, bringing him back to that place he’d seen more than once in his dreams: a dark room, orange wallpaper, his hands around a girl’s throat. Her eyes spilling over with tears.

“Sam? Please, you can’t do this! You said you’d help me!”

“Sorry, Annalise. This stopped being my problem yesterday.”

Distantly, Sam felt himself swaying, his knees giving out. He blunted his shoulder off the dumpster on his left as he sank down on the street.

            “S-Sam? Sam?” Gwen crouched in front of him, grabbing his shoulder. “You okay? Hey, big boy!”

            Sam braced one hand against his head and shook the memories out, hard, as hard as he could. He couldn’t shake away the headache, but that was almost second nature at this point. He blinked to clear his field of vision and saw Gwen looking more concerned than ever, maybe a little freaked out.

            “I remember her,” He said raggedly. “Samuel and I, we were…helping that girl, last time we were here.”

            “Uh-huh. Can you stand up?”

            After a wave like this, Sam knew better. He shook his head. “I just need a minute.” When Gwen didn’t move, Sam added, “Samuel worked this case before. Why does he need to look up the history?”

            Gwen frowned. “I asked him that myself. But ever since you left, he’s been shut up like a steel trap.” She squeezed his shoulder. “He leaned on you, Sam. Probably too much. You crumbled, he crumbled with you.”

            Sam wanted to cringe; just one more person he’d let down.

            He put his hand to the wall behind him and dragged himself to his feet; his chest and head were aching, but he’d come out without feeling like he was going to throw up, which was a welcome change. He shot a glance down the alley again and saw Samuel still standing stock-still in the middle of the street, staring up at the overcast sky.

            “Gwen, could you give us a minute?” Sam asked quietly, and she hesitated, looking between him and Samuel. Sam pulled a strained smile. “We’re not gonna fight. I promise. I just…need to talk to him for a second.”

            “You boys play nice.” Gwen patted Sam lightly on the chest and headed out of the alley; Sam took a deep breath, massaging his bruised shoulder, and walked over to join Samuel.

            He stopped a few steps behind his grandfather, waiting. Samuel didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t even twitch.

            “What else aren’t you telling Gwen?” Sam asked quietly, keeping his anger in check. He could still feel it frothing under the surface—but that could wait.

            “Everything she _doesn’t_ need to know.”

            “Samuel. Mark’s gone. Christian’s gone. Everybody else left, and…if you don’t start trusting Gwen, you’ll never make it through this war.”

            “That a threat?” Samuel asked coldly.

            “Observation.” Sam replied calmly.

            Samuel finally turned to face him, face a twisted mask of fury. “Let me tell you something, son. Eight months ago, when we were here working this case together, you shut me out same way I’m shutting her out. You jumped into this one feet-first, did all the research yourself, all of the man-to-man conversations, everything. Then one night you show up at the van looking like a kid on Christmas. Told me we needed to go. You never said word one about anything you did.”

            “So you’re out of the loop.” Sam said.

            “Never even met Annalise.”

            “Then do me a favor.” Sam said quietly. “If you ever cared about me, if you ever cared about your family—let me handle this one. Please. You and Gwen—just, pack up and go.”

            Samuel’s narrow-eyed gaze pinned down on Sam’s face. “Let me point something out to you. I let you handle this case eight months ago, and here we are. You’re two feet tall and in over your head, and I can’t trust you to do a damn thing to put this right. So I’m not going anywhere, not until I see this one through.”

            Sam glared at him. “So, what, we’re racing?”

            “If need be.”

            “Look. I _need_ to find out what happened here. This might be bigger than one case, Samuel, this could affect a lot of people. Honestly? I’m not sure yet. But I can’t do this if I’m constantly trying to one-up you!”

            “Then take a seat on the sidelines and let me work this out for the both of us.”

            Sam looked at him, incredulous, and silent.

            Samuel sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “We were a hell of a team, Sam. Could use your help, if you’d be willing.”

            Sam’s throat was tacky and dry. “Something tells me that’s not gonna work. Not while I have my soul.”

            “That’s a hell of a self-righteous thing for you to say. After what you’ve done, you don’t get to dish out judgment.”

            Sam stepped back. “I can handle this.”

            “I highly doubt that.”

            Sam turned and gave himself room to walk away, to not look back, not let his temper take control and force him to smash his grandfather’s bald head on the ground.

            “Sam.” Gwen met him at the mouth of the alley. “What happened?”

            “You think you can distract him while I handle the case?” Sam asked, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

            The silence was heavy, questioning. Gwen weighing out Samuel’s betrayal, his deceptions, against her trust in Sam. Her belief that he could get the job done.

            “I can try.”

            “Thanks.”

            It was all the help Sam figured he would get.

 

 

            It wasn’t hard to find Annalise Stetson. A Google search pulled up her name: top achiever in an architecture class at a nearby college, graduated with honors last year. Sam dug a little deeper and found her address. After an hour of driving circles in the city, steeling himself for what was coming, Sam punched the steering wheel and told himself to just do it, already.

            That was how he ended up standing outside her door, a heavy bass beat thumping in his feet from the other side of the door. It clicked off the fourth time he knocked—more like pounded—on the door.

            The door wedged open a crack and Sam found himself looking down at a girl with straggling brownish-blond hair and dark circles of makeup around her eyes. She couldn’t have been much younger than him, but she looked about ten years older.

            Her eyes flicked over him. Hardened.

            “What the hell do you want?”

            Sam shoved his hands into his pockets. “Annalise?”

            “Get away from my apartment.” She started to shut the door and Sam, desperate, put out a hand to stop her.

            “Wait. Please? Just give me a chance to explain.”

            “There’s nothing to _explain_ , Winchester!” She heaved her weight against the door and Sam stepped back, letting her slam it shut in his face. But that wasn’t the end of it, he couldn’t let it be.

            “Annalise.” He rested his hand on the door. “Look. I know something’s wrong, all right? With you, with me, with…us.” He hesitated, and didn’t hear anything on the other side of the door. “I just want to help you.”

            “I don’t think I really want your kind of _help_.” She snapped.

            “I know you don’t.” Sam said desperately. “But this is all I can think about. It’s like…it’s eating me alive. I need to make this right. Whatever I did to you, I have to fix it. Or it’s gonna kill me.”

            “ _Whatever you did to me_?” Annalise’s voice punched through several octaves.

            Sam winced. “Listen. Last time I saw you, I was…I was in over my head in a lot of stuff. But I’m clean, I’m back to…” He paused. “Normal.”

            “Yeah, right.” Annalise snapped, but she almost sounded unsure.

            “Open this door,” Sam said quietly, “Look me in the eye, and tell me I’m the same person you met eight months ago. If I am, then I’ll go, and you’re not going to hear from me again. But if you think there’s a chance I can help you…then we both need for you to take that chance.”

            Things stayed quiet for so long Sam had the sick feeling she was going to ignore him. Or call the police.

            The door eased open a crack. Annalise poked her head out and stared up at him, and Sam stepped back, holding himself loosely, trying to look nonthreatening and not give away the growing ache behind his left eye that intensified every second he was looking at her.

            Finally, she shoved the door all the way open and crossed her arms. “Do you remember a damn thing about meeting me, Winchester?”

            Sam gritted his teeth and shrugged sheepishly. “Not…really.”

            “What, were you _high_?”

            “I…wasn’t exactly myself.”

            “But you’re still doing the same job now, right?”

            “What did I tell you I was doing, before?”

            “Some kind of…Ghostbusters meets Fringe deal.”

            Sam half-smiled. “Something like that, yeah. You mind if I come in?”

            She looked him up and down, then nodded wordlessly and sidestepped. Sam shuffled past her, feeling a little awkward and a lot like this place was familiar. When Annalise headed for the tiny kitchen, Sam stayed a few steps behind, casing the apartment. Simplistic. Cozy. The couch against the far wall had a huge ridge in the middle, the kind that would dig into your back when you were trying to get comfortable, trying to—

            Sleep.

            Sam knew that, too.

            Annalisa opened the fridge, pulled out a carton of milk and banged it down on the counter. “So. What are you doing back in town?”

            “Like I said. I’m here to help you.” Sam pulled himself up onto one of the bar stools beside the breakfast counter. Annalise poured herself a glass of milk and shoved the carton his way.

            “Finish it.” She ordered, taking a long drink of hers. “What’s the _real_ reason you’re here, Winchester?”

            Sam laughed once, quietly. “I’m not lying to you, Annalise. I’m reopening the case—whatever it is. But I need you to work with me.”

            “Mmhmm.” She wiped off her milk moustache and looked at him cold and hard for so long Sam wondered if she was really trying to see behind his eyes, find out what was there that had been missing before. “I’m cursed.”

            Sam blinked and sat back, shaking his hair out of his eyes. “Come again?”

            Annalise leaned her elbows on the counter beside the sink and shrugged. “I’m cursed. Every person I love, dies. And I really mean _everyone_. Friends. Family. I’m an orphan—I used to have three sisters. _Three._ You don’t know what that’s like. Losing a sibling is like getting your limbs torn off.”

            Sam swallowed, looking down. Remembering a suburban house on a balmy May night. Gore splattered on his chest. Dean’s bloody, cold body cradled in his arms.

            “Actually, I do.” He said.

            “Yeah. Right. You told me you were an only child.”

            Sam looked up at her sharply. “I did?”

            She raised her eyebrows and nodded. Ignoring the pitch and roll in his stomach, Sam leaned toward her.

            “I’m sorry about your family.” He said quietly. “And I’m sorry I lied to you. Like I said, I was…pretty messed up.”

            “You got that right.” Annalise downed the rest of her milk in one gulp and banged the glass so hard on the counter Sam thought it might crack. “Yeah, you left town in a hurry last time. Couldn’t get away from me fast enough, huh?”

            “That’s not it.” Sam protested.

            “Oh, then what?”

            Sam tipped his mouth to one side, glanced away, then met her glittering, challenging stare. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

            “Don’t look at me. All I know is, you were pretty freaked out.”

            Sam frowned. “Freaked out?”

            “Yeah. You know. _Terrified_.”

            “Huh.” Sam shifted his jaw, straightening on the stool. Annalise looked at him like she didn’t want to care about whatever had caught his interest.

            She finally gave in. “ _What_?”

            “Nothing. It’s just…” Sam trailed off.

            It was a simple matter of him not having a soul; and without a soul, he’d felt no emotions. No happiness. No anger. No _fear_. So either he’d been replicating emotion, for some purpose he didn’t want to imagine.

            Or?

            There was something else sitting on his chest, something Sam couldn’t get a good grip on, but it was gnawing at him, haunting him. Something important.

            “Whatever. Tell me, don’t tell me.” Annalise tossed the milk carton in the trash. “I don’t know what you can do to help.”

            “I’ll do some digging, see what I can find out about a curse.” Sam stood up. “Annalise, do you know _why_ I left town last time?”

            She cut a look down and sideways. “How should I know? It’s not like we ever really talked.”

            Sam didn’t like the way she wouldn’t meet his eyes; he’d had his share of run-ins with liars and this was a classic case. But as much as Sam wanted, _needed_ to know what was going on behind all of this, he could feel how tenuous her trust in him was, like a spider web soaked with rain. One drop too much and it’d snap that thin wire in two, and then Sam would have nothing. And with this case a neck-and-neck marathon against his grandfather, he couldn’t afford slip ups.

            “Do me a favor?” He said. “If some bald guy comes looking for you, don’t answer the door.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

_January 4 th, 2011_

_King’s Ridge Motel, Memphis, Tennessee_

 

Somewhere during the drive, the headache crossed over into a migraine.

            It was bad enough, a clamor of constant falling pots and pans in his head, that Sam had to stop at a convenience store and buy a bottle of Excedrin. To hell with handling it on his own, he couldn’t even see the street he was driving on.

            Once again, the pills barely took the edge off the pain; but it was enough that Sam, squinting against the sharp rebound of sunlight off the cab of the truck, could drive at a crawl back to the King’s Ridge Motel. Climb out. Stumble up the stairs to his room and shove the door in with his shoulder.

            It didn’t take him half a second to realize he wasn’t alone; more a sense than a line of sight thing, a shadow moving at the hazy edges of his vision.

            “Dean?” He said, fuzzily, and he didn’t feel pissed or disrespected, he felt _hopeful_. Maybe even relieved.

            Then he realized it wasn’t Dean. Too tall, not stocky enough.

            “Boy, you look like your ass got torn six ways from Sunday.”

            Sam groaned, kicking the door shut behind him, and flicked off the light. “Samuel?”

            “You expecting someone else?”

            Sam squeezed his eyes shut, his grandfather’s loud, belligerent voice tunneling straight through to his brain and nettling in like a hook in the side of a fish’s mouth.

            “How’d you get in?”

            “Manager ain’t much for privacy. Told him I was a cop investigating a madman’s case.” Samuel paced slowly along the back wall, running the flat of his hand across the gouges and markered-on words. “Can’t say that looks too far off the mark, here.”

            “Get out.” Sam said, the sharpness of his voice betrayed a bit when it shook. He was flashing hot and cold, vibrating a little while his body tried to regulate temperature.

            “Trying to shut me out of my own case?” Samuel still didn’t look at him, and somehow Sam had the feeling that was more dangerous than anything else about this situation—him, weak, and his grandfather probably armed. And the tension between them splitting the air like lightning in a humid, still sky. “You sure that’s a smart move?”

            “I’ll take my chances.” Sam leaned heavily back against the wall. “You don’t care about Annalise. You just want to clean up my mess.”

            “Someone should.”

            “I told you, _I’ll handle it_.”

            “And _I_ told _you_ , that didn’t work too well last time.”

            “I was _soulless_!”

            “That’s a part of you, Sam!” Samuel yelled, and Sam tucked his chin, wincing. “It’s a part of you like the air you breathe, son. You think that beast ain’t still inside you, waiting to come out? You can’t shut me out of this one forever.”

            Sam looked up, squinting against the pain. “Where’s Gwen?”

            “In time-out.” Samuel replied, stopping, running his hand over the wall again. “You know, I found you here once when we were hunting. You were drunk as a skunk and had that knife in your hand, and boy, you were a monster. Half-crazy. Threatening me, threatening everybody.” He shrugged, looking at Sam over his shoulder with pity in his eyes. “Truth is, you didn’t want to be saved, Sam. You didn’t want any part of it.”

            Sam snapped his head up. “Go to Hell.”

            From a Winchester—words with bite to them.

            Samuel shook his head. “You skipped town last time, Sam. You bailed on that girl because you thought she was a lost cause. You know why? ’Cause curses can’t be broken. Just appeased.”

            Sam’s headache ratcheted up a notch. “You know she’s cursed?”

            “Went through the obituaries. I wasn’t born yesterday, son, I know how to put two-and-two together. Gotta be a curse.”

            “Then what are you still doing here?” Sam demanded softly. “You should be out there, helping her.”

            “Like I said. Curses can’t be helped. You avoid them, you move out of the way. What you want to do is pointless, Sam.”

            “I’ll find a way to break it.” Sam insisted. “We found that cure for vampirism, right? We helped Dean. We’re not up against these enemies we don’t understand anymore, Samuel. There are ways we can stop it.”

            “Stop it.” Samuel echoed with bitter amusement. “Is that what you want to do, Sam? Stop an innocent little girl from dying?”

            Sam stiffened. “She’s not gonna die.”

            “Fifteen people dead around her, Sam. Cops have already questioned her a dozen times. She can’t leave her house, can’t take a step outside or say anything to anyone because she’s afraid she’ll kill ’em. She’d be better off it we put her out of her misery.”

            Even though it sent shockwaves of dizziness swirling down behind his eyes, Sam straightened and stepped in front of the door. “You stay…away from her.”

            “Not making any promises, Sam.”

            “I told you, I can find a way to help her!”

            “That’s a rip.” Samuel chuckled shortly. “You, Samuel John Winchester. Saving people? You have any idea what you’ve done?”

            Sam stared at him, ripples of tension making his knees dip.

            “Pontiac, Minnesota. You left a girl burning in a fire to chase a Rugaru. Port Orchard, Washington. Tied a rope around a baby and lowered it into a vampire nest to pull them closer to the sunlight. Seattle, two days later. Slit a man’s throat to use his blood for a ritual!”

            Every word, every reiteration of a case they’d done together hit Sam like a falling boulder and sank in, sitting heavy under his skin. Sweat broke out on his forehead and a flush crawled up the back of his neck. “Stop.”

            Samuel walked over and grabbed a corner of the wallpaper, yanking it so it slit down the middle. There were jumbled words underneath, a mish-mashed paragraph. He tapped his finger against it. “Baton Rouge. Right here, Sam, you wrote the whole thing down. You choked the life out of a man because you thought there was something _inside of him_. Turned out you were right…but you didn’t have to kill him to get at it.”

            Samuel walked to the next scrap of wallpaper, tore it off. “Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. You let a whole family drown while you took down the Trickster that’d gone rogue and attacked them. Yellowstone, you dropped a little girl off a cliff to piss off her werewolf father.”

            It was something, something that was like black magic, or some other kind of sorcery—those words, scrawled on the walls, and Samuel’s voice reading off everything, everything he’d done wrong. The words weren’t just hitting anymore, they were bringing on flashes. Flashes that ripped through cheap drywall and cut through the smoke.

            “Stop.” Sam said, desperate, a high-pitched ringing in his ears. “Please…”

            “Palm Beach—”

            Sam’s knees hit the floor; he felt his eyes roll up into the back of his head.

            He was out before his shaking, jerking body had fallen the rest of the way.

 

 

            The first thing Sam heard was birdsong.

            He didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes. Just laid there with his cheek pressed against something rough and warm. Didn’t feel like the floor of the motel. Felt more like—

            “Hey, buddy, you all right?”

            Concrete?”

            Sam picked up his head, squinting.

            He was lying in the middle of a sidewalk, sprawled out, blocking travel. A tall guy with a briefcase was kneeling beside him, shaking his shoulder gently. “Buddy. You look like hell. What’s’a matter?”

            Sam recognized that accent: Chicago.

            What the _hell_ was he doing in _Chicago_?

            Sam sat up, slowly, squinting and blinking. His migraine was gone, Samuel was gone. He was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk in the middle of Chicago, and a few seconds ago he’d been in Memphis.

            Sam shifted, pulled his legs around, braced his elbows on his knees and clutched his head in his hands. God. He couldn’t _remember_. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here. Had Samuel hauled him all the way up here? _Why_?

            Palm Beach.

            Sam’s eyes flew open wide. “I killed someone.”

            “Yeah, that’s great, buddy.” The guy was checking his watch. “You gonna be all right? Don’t wanna just leave a man down, but I’m late for work.”

            “I just said that I _killed someone_.”

            “Well, you look fine to me.” The man stood up. “Take it easy.”

            Sam sat in the middle of the sidewalk, puzzled, dumbfounded, and uneasy.

            He remembered Palm Beach. He remembered grabbing a woman and smashing her head against a wall when she got between him and her son—a witch. He’d bashed her brains in without a second thought, his eyes on the target.

            Sam buried his head, shivering, and it felt like the world shivered at the same time. He looked up, at the people walking past, and the huge buildings. He needed to get up, find a phone. Call Samuel and figure out what was going on, how he’d gotten here. And more importantly, how fast he could get back to Annalise, to help her.

            If he could. If anyone who’d done the things he’d done could be saved, or deserved to be saved. Or could save anyone else.

            It was no wonder Death had put up the wall. Hell wasn’t where he’d been, it was what the rest of him had done while he was away. The rest of him—that part Samuel had said was still there, inside. The monster. The part that had killed people—innocent people. _Kids_. A _baby_.

            The same part that had done a lot of other things. Drank demon blood. Had sex with Ruby. Thrown Dean through a glass coffee table. Set Lucifer free.

            Sam shuddered, clammy nausea curling in his stomach, and got to his feet. He knew right now, he would never find a word strong enough for how sorry he was. It didn’t exist. He couldn’t label this sort of soul-eating regret, the kind that ran so deep it made him feel like he would pitch over or throw up.

            Instead he started walking, his body feeling lighter in absence of the migraine even though his heart was sitting like a lump of cement under his ribs. Sam walked past the Giant Bean, the light glaring off of the silver surface, cutting into his eyes—

            “Sam! S-Sam!”

            He twisted around, looking back down the street. At nothing. No one was looking at him, looking _for_ him. Sam tilted his head in confusion, then turned and kept walking. Looking for a payphone, or someone using a cell phone.

            Weird. The middle of downtown Chicago, and no one had a cell?

            “ _Sam_!”

            He turned a full circle, looking around.

            “Sam? Sam—follow my voice. Sam, are you okay?”

            “ _Sam_!”

            Sam looked back at the Giant Bean.

            Saw himself, a dim reflection in a white shirt and jeans.

            And someone beside him. Someone exactly like him, his echo, like a reflection of a reflection. With a hideous, animal smile that didn’t feel anything but base pleasure.

            And behind him, a monster: something reflecting back on the Bean with a gaping hole of a mouth, needle sharp teeth and empty, staring eyes.

            The animal-Sam turned and drew his firearm, taking aim into the crowd as the monster bolted, slamming between bodies.

            The first report of gunfire hit Sam like an electric jolt straight to the heart. The city sucked away in blackness and Sam was on his knees, the world rippling and strafing around him. Hands were on his shoulders.

            “Sam! Thank God.”

            Sam looked up, panic clenching his insides. “ _Adam_?”

            “Yeah, it’s me. Here, feel.” He put a hand against Sam’s face; it was warm, living, not the deep cold of the devil’s masquerade. “Only thing he can’t imitate, right?”

            “Where…where are we?” Sam asked, his voice guttural and small in the darkness.

            “Beats me. Somewhere in the back of the maze. You just went down. What happened?  Hellhounds?”

            Memphis. Chicago. _Hell_.

            What if he’d dreamed the first two?

            What if he’d never left?

            A faraway, hoarse drawl of barking had Adam stiffening, panic flashing in his wide blue eyes. And instinct kicked in, an instinct Sam hadn’t really known was in him. He dragged himself to his feet, grabbed Adam’s shoulder and turned him down the tunnel. “Go. I can buy you some time.”

            “No! Sam, we stick together. We made a promise.”

            “They’re too close,” Sam insisted, his mind feeling as though it was pulling from a script. “Adam, _run_!”

            Adam held his ground until the thumping of massive paws shook the tunnel walls around them. He grabbed the back of Sam’s shirt, gave it a tug, and vanished. And somehow Sam felt like he knew what that meant— _I’ll find you_.

            Sam stood his ground, arms slightly spread, feet braced. Sick of running. Sick of all the endless days he’d spent down here, defending Adam, dodging Lucifer, searching for a way out, and begging for Michael’s help. It was time to stake his claim, make a stand. Now, or never.

            The hellhounds came skidding around the corner, and down here Sam could see them, not just hear, but _see_ : massive, rotting, flesh hanging off in ropes. Sick green tar oozing from countless hellfire sores, their top teeth scissoring down inches longer than their bottom jaws.

            These were the things that had killed Dean.

            “Come on, you nasty sons of bitches!” Sam snarled, arms spread wide.

            The first hellhound leaped, taking him down with its teeth in his shoulder.

            They ripped and pulled and tore into him until Sam was throwing up his own blood. Agony—that didn’t touch this. Suffering was like getting a bad sunburn. This wasn’t even Hell, this was—no words to describe it.

            Gasping, tears soaking his cheeks with the pain that was ingrained into every fiber of his being, Sam still fought back. Hitting, punching anything he could see. Getting a few whimpers in the shadows of his own screams. Had to keep them distracted, had to give Adam time. They’d come so close to finding a rift in the cage. Followed clues. Patterns. Places were it was weakest.

            Adam had to get out. Claw his way to the surface. Find the others, find—

            Sam was strung up, hanging, someone stepping toward him from the darkness—then moving, almost gliding forward, grabbing his chin. “Hello, Sam.”

            Blood dripping from his open mouth, dazed eyes only seeing hazy outlines, sliding shut every few seconds, Sam didn’t response.

            “You know, Sam, this is the first time we’ve been alone together since we all ended up in this mess.” Lucifer tweaked Sam’s chin and stepped back. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen any souls on the rack, Sam. But I think yours will do just fine.”

            A soft spattering sound brought Sam’s head turning slowly to the right. A detached kind of horror made his glazed eyes widen and his throat constrict as he saw the chain looped _into_ his wrists, iron circlets stabbing between the bones of his forearm. And fire, spreading slowly up the chain, Lucifer’s gaze leading it closer to Sam’s skin.

            “Please.” Sam’s voice was wet, a steady stream of blood pooling from the corner of his mouth. “No…d-don’t. Please.”

            “You thought you could just end it all, Sam?” Lucifer’s gaze flicked briefly to him, then back to the fire. “You know, everyone says I’m the over-confident one. But did you _really_ think you could just jump in the pit and the curtain would go down?” He shook his head sympathetically. “Someone needs to teach you a lesson, Sam.”

            Sam’s head swung low, absence of strength making his muscles loosen. He only had one real thought: _Adam. Run_.

            The fire whipped across his skin, and the screaming started.

            Sam didn’t know how long he was chained there. Suspended in darkness. Only going quiet when his throat was hoarse, and then trapped inside of himself, screaming from within. Everything, everything was on fire. Burning, long after the flames went out. Lucifer let the hellhounds at him. And sometimes he did things himself—using the pattern of the cage, his own personal playing field, to make Sam feel pain he’d never felt before, in places he hadn’t known existed, or could _hurt_ like that. And other times he reignited the fire and went searching for Adam.

            Sometimes, Sam’s screams made sense. He’d scream for his father. For Bobby. For Mary. Jessica, even Madison. Once or twice Rufus’s name slipped in. Castiel.

            Dean.

            Pleading. Begging his brother to help him. _Please! Dean! I need you! I’m dying., Dean! Help me! Help me!_ Until he couldn’t breathe anymore, Dean’s name choking in his smoke-filled lungs.

He’d scream like a terrified kid in a thunderstorm. Except the storm wasn’t out there. It was inside of him. The lightning striking close, setting him on fire. He burned to cinders but never seemed to actually die.

            “Where’s Adam, Sam?”

            He couldn’t answer.

            “Sam? You know the boy won’t escape. This cage is impenetrable, designed by God. Nothing gets out. It was the whole purpose behind its construction.”

            Blanketed with numbness, Sam couldn’t move as Lucifer cupped his cheek.

            “Come on, Sam. You aren’t dead. You still have a few centuries of fight left in you before you become one of _them_.” Fingers tapping behind his jaw, a soft, almost singsong voice in his ears: “Where’s your _brother_ , Sam?”

            “Right behind you, you son of a bitch.”

            Sam’s head snapped up.

            The Holy Oil Molotov hit Lucifer square in the chest, and for a second Sam thought it wouldn’t do anything. Then he was seeing it, really seeing it, the thing he’d spent days, weeks now, hanging on this rack, waiting for, _praying_ for, praying to a God who probably couldn’t hear him down in this pit.

            Lucifer was burning.

            A smile, real, soft, relieved, tipped Sam’s lips, and his chin fell to his bloodstained chest. His eyes closed.

            “Sam! Sammy!” Hands curled gently around the sides of his neck, then slid down his tattered shoulders, to the chains. “Son of a bitch, Sammy. What did he do to you?”

            Sam’s breathing accelerated. That voice—how many times has he been lost in these tunnels, dying to hear the echo if it? But now that they were both here, how were they going to get out?

            “Nng…guh.” Sam moaned, trying to pull his arms free of their restraints.

            “Hang on a second, I got this.”

            There was a one-two tap of gunfire, and Sam’s ruined right arm dangled limp at his side. Another two shots loosened his left arm, and he sagged toward the floor.

            Strong arms caught him around his chest, lowering him gently. A hand dragged through the tangled, sweat-stiff, bloodstained hair on the back of his head. “Sammy.”

            “Dean.” Sam’s voice was a whimper. “You found me?”

            “Always. I’ll find you every time.” Dean said. “I got you, Sam, I got you.”

            Sam buried his face in the crook of his brother’s neck. He was spent, buried, used up from all of the days on the rack, the burning, the agony, the screams. Didn’t have the strength left to be tough, to pretend he was okay. He never would be. Ever. But Dean was here, somehow, his prayers, the screams—someone had heard him.

            “Dean, I—”

            “Easy, little brother.”

            “How?”

            “Dude, you do not wanna know.” Dean picked his head up, and Sam rolled his eyes sideways to see what Dean was looking at. He was staring down the tunnel, the profile of his face outlined in bright blue against shadows. “Where’s Adam?”

            “Looking for a way out.”

            “All right. We gotta find him, and we gotta shag ass. That bastard won’t stay gone for long.” Dean stood, hauling Sam up by his useless arm. Sam wavered, unsteady on feet that he hadn’t used in weeks. Dean backed Sam gently against the wall to brace him, and grabbed Sam’s face in his hands. “Listen up, Sammy. I didn’t come all the way back down here to die. You’re stayin’ awake. You stay with me, okay? I’m not taking one step without you. So you better help me out, here.”

            “What if he locks us both in here?” Sam asked huskily.

            Dean grabbed the back of Sam’s neck and gave him a small shake. “Then we kick the Devil’s ass and bust back out. Whatever happens, we’re doing it together. Understand?”

            “Dead or alive.” Sam said quietly.

            Dean grinned. “Damn right, little brother.” He pulled Sam’s arm across his shoulders. “Let’s go find that little pain in the ass.”

            Sam could only give Dean vague directions about where the rift was; his memory of the map he and Adam had laid out carefully was mostly a fogged haze in his mind. He hoped Adam had followed it; that he’d gotten out, or that he was at least close to where they’d planned on meeting up.

            They walked for a while, Sam with his useless arm trailing blood on the tunnel floor behind them. Every step made him feel weaker, dizzy. He finally gave in, sagging his full weight against his brother. “Dean, I can’t.”

            “All right, okay, easy.” Dean stopped and eased Sam down, sitting him back against the wall of the tunnel. He rearranged Sam’s arms gently so they weren’t trailing blood on the floor anymore. “What hurts, Sammy?”

            “Everything.” And it did. It felt like the fire was still there, living under his skin. “Dean, if I don’t—”

            “Dude, no mushy goodbyes. Hear me? I’m not letting you die. Ever again. You understand me?”

            Sam opened his mouth to answer.

            Something clattered further down the tunnel.

            Both brothers looked, Dean with a frown cutting deep into his features, Sam with panic that shot straight down to his core.

            “That can’t be good.” Dean stood up and Sam grabbed for the front of his brother’s jacket like he was nine years old again.

            “Dean, don’t—”

            “Not goin’ anywhere, Sam. I just wanna check it out.” Dean pulled his faithful firearm out of the inside of his jacket, shook Sam’s hand off gently and walked a few steps down the tunnel. “Sam. How close are we to the rift?”

“Uh,” Sam leaned his head back against the wall. “Not too far.”

“Awesome.” Dean raised his voice slightly. “Adam? That you?”

The words echoed hollowly off the tunnel walls. Dean stood tense for a few seconds, then turned back to face Sam. “Sam, you think you can—?”

The hellhound came out of nowhere, grabbing Dean with its teeth in his throat, wrenching its head back. Dean’s eyes were fixed on Sam for a few seconds, wide, terrified and in anguish before the blood exploded from under his skin.

He crumpled to the floor and the hellhound leaped back, slavering jaws opened wide, eyes on Sam. Then it—grinned, almost, if an animal could do that. And disappeared in a tuft of smoke.

“Dean.” Sam said, hollowly, stunned. “Dean, _no_!”

He crawled, on his hands and knees, to his brother’s side. Clamping both hands around the deep tooth incision marks on his brother’s neck. Dean’s gaze fluttered desperately, roved around the tunnel and came back to Sam.

He reached up, weakly, grabbing a fistful of Sam’s shirt. “Sammy—”

“No. No.” Sam shook his head, hard. “Dean, you can’t go, man.”

“Sorry I—couldn’t get you out, little brother.”

“Dean! No, stay with me!”

Dean’s eyes slid closed. He went limp on the floor.

“God. God, please. No, no, no, no…Dean! _Dean_!”

_Dead or alive, Dean. You promised._

“Gyuh!” Sam jolted, something hard and fast hitting his face, stinging.

“Sam! That’s it, come on back, kid.” Soft hands picked his head up from the floor, resting it on bony knees. “Sam? Can you hear me?”

The headache came crashing back down; Sam closed his eyes tighter, turning away from the memory of blood blazing behind his gaze. Blood and hellhound teeth and a dark, twisted tunnel.

“Easy, there, sasquatch boy.”

“Gwen.” Sam muttered, turning his face away from her.

“He remembers.” Gwen laid a hand on his forehead. “Well, your fever’s down. I’ve never seen one come and go that fast.”

“H-how—how long was I—?”

“Half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes.”

Forty-five minutes. But he’d spent weeks as Lucifer’s play-toy, strung up, walking the gauntlet of Hell in his memories. A massive, bleeding crack in the wall had sent him through a memory of himself, soulless. Disregarding innocent lives. Watching Dean die, the way Lucifer had showed him.

It wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real. He knew his brother was still alive.

Sam rolled up onto his hands and knees, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Dizzy, shaking so badly the room tipped and spun. “Where is he, Gwen?”

She didn’t have to ask. “I followed him out here. Saw him take off running and came up here to find you. You were flopping around like a fish on a dock. What’d that egg-headed bastard do to you, Sam?”

“Tried to talk me out of the case.” Sam put his hand against the wall and pulled himself unsteadily to his feet. “Gwen. You have to find him. He’s gonna kill Annalise.”

Gwen’s eyes widened. “I don’t—I don’t understand.”

“To stop the curse! To stop more people from dying.”

“He can’t just _kill_ an innocent girl! She’s a victim!”

“I know.” Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, then looked at her. “If I can beat him to her place, I can make sure she’s safe. But, Gwen, you have to stall him.”

“I tried. Sam, he saw right through me.”

Sam’s jaw clenched grimly. “Then you tell him I’m not backing down. This seizure? That’s the least of his worries. I’ll do anything I have to, if it means stopping him and breaking this curse. Tell him I said that.”

Gwen blinked at him. “Sam, be careful.”

Sam saw a flash of that tunnel; of cold, gray earth-and-stone walls.

Careful. What had careful ever gotten him but blood on his hands and a guilty conscience at night? He was hiding from the dozens of people he’d maimed, endangered and killed. He’d used his own brother for bait.

Dean.

“Do you have a phone?”

“Uh…yeah.” Gwen reached into the pocket of her leather blazer and pulled out a flip-phone, tossing it to him. Sam opened it, punched in the number by memory and fixed his stare on the window.

            It rang twice. “Yeah? This is Dean.”

            Sam hung up and tossed the phone back to Gwen. “Go find Samuel.”

            The case had just twisted, gone deep and dark and Sam was in over his head.

            But at least the memories of Hell had just been that—memories.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

_January 5 th, 2011_

_Number Ten Main Apartments, Memphis, Tennessee_

“You’re sure this is everything?”

            Annalise slammed down a stack of baby photos on the dining room table and glared at Sam. “Yes, Winchester. This is my entire family history as far back as I can remember. And _unlike_ you, I don’t have memory loss, and I actually _know_ what I’m talking about. _So deal with it_.”

            “All right. Sorry.” Sam held up both hands in a calming gesture, then rested his fist on his forehead and flipped open the next leather-bound journal in the stack.

            He’d been going deep into Annalise’s family history for most of the day; after he’d driven the truck to the parking lot across the street from her apartment, where he’d slept in hard spurts, still waking up every half hour to make sure he didn’t have any unwelcome visitors. One thing was certain—the next time he saw his grandfather, Sam had every intention of beating the righteous fear of God into the man.

            He’d ended up back at Annalise’s door at dawn, not sure where else to go for solid information. So far she’d been a helpful, if cynical, resource. And it scared Sam to think that the last time he’d visited, that was all she’d been to him. Just a statistic, a wellspring of information. Not a person. Or at least, not one of any measurable worth.

            That guilt still had him looking up at her every couple of minutes with a rollicking punch to his guts.

            “What are you staring at?” She snapped, catching his eye.

            “Uh. Nothing.” Sam sat back and smoothed the crimped pages down with his hands. “I’ve just…I’ve never seen a family keep a genealogy the way yours did.” He flicked a smile her way. “It’s pretty impressive.”

            “Yeah, we were always good at journaling.” Annalise perched on the barstool across the room from him, wrapping her hands around her coffee mug. “Ever since my ancestors immigrated from Russia, on my mom’s side. Sort of a family honor thing, you know?”

            “Family traditions are great.” Sam nodded. “They help keep people connected.”

            “Mm.” She hummed, taking a noisy drink of coffee. “You have any family traditions?”

            Sam smiled slightly. “My brother and I are in this business together. Does that count?”

            “No. Traditions are usually a pleasure thing. Not work, so much.”

            “Huh.” Sam skimmed his fingers down the page, thinking. “I guess…every time it’s clear out, if we have a break between jobs, Dean likes to drive out into the middle of nowhere and just kind of kick back, y’know, relax. Watch the stars.” He chuckled once, quietly, with a small frown. “Been a while since we did that, actually.”

            “Not much of a tradition if you just let it die.” Annalise pointed out dryly.

            “Yeah.” Sam thumbed through a few pages, leaning back in the chair again. “So, uh. Your family. Any history of the curse presenting before?”

            “Like I said, it’s just been me.”

            “Right,” Sam trailed off, flipping back to the beginning of the journal, kicking up a clot of dust that irritated his nose.

            Silence hung in between them for a few minutes; then Annalise shifted and set her mug aside. “So, what are you looking for?”

            “Well, I’m wondering what your family did while they were in Russia.” Sam said. “Were they…farmers, trappers, hunters, that kind of thing.”

            “What does is it matter?” Annalise asked, but for once she didn’t sound belligerent. “That was, like…a _lot_ of generations ago.”

            “Right.” Sam agreed. “But sometimes these things, curses, they can come with…a set of rules. They might only affect the men of the family. Or the women. I’m thinking maybe in your case, it’s something providential.”

            “First architect major out of the bloodline. _Big_ threat.” Annalise hopped off the stool, walked over and leaned her flat hands on the table beside him. “Who do you think did the cursing?”

            Sam frowned, mouth twisted in a frown. “That’s what I can’t figure out. Maybe if one of your ancestors tangled with some kind of witch before they immigrated…”

            “Could it have been my dad’s ancestors? I mean, they were pretty shady.”

            “Yeah, you mentioned that. Free Masons, right?” Sam glanced up at her and Annalise nodded. For a few seconds Sam caught himself staring at her lips—they were a few inches away. Wondering what would happen if he sat up a little straighter and kissed her, no warning. He shook it off and looked down again, the back of his neck flushing. “Hey. You think I could have some more coffee?”

“Do I look like some kind of maid, Winchester?” Annalise snapped, but she backed off anyway, heading for the pot and pouring out all but the last few dregs into his empty mug. “So. Free Masons? Sound dicey to you?”

Sam slapped the genealogy book closed. “It’s possible, but it’s like you said: there’s no real reason for this curse to target you and no one else. And these journals list the death of pretty much all of your relatives. None of them started dying for unexplained reasons.”

“Guess we’re just perfectly normal.” Annalise shoved the mug across the table to Sam, almost spilling it into his lap. “So we can rule out my ancestors getting the blame for how much my life sucks?”

Sam sighed. “I dunno. The more I look into it, this doesn’t seem like a generational curse. More like a personal vendetta.”

            “I _told_ you,” Annalise snapped, the hard mask slipping back into place. “I never pissed anyone off! No witches, anyway.”

            “And this has been going on since you were eight?”

            Annalise nodded and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “That’s when my mom died.”

            Sam’s face scrunched with sympathy and he slid the musty journal back and forth across the table, tapping his fingers on the leather cover. If it wasn’t generational, then—

            “Hey. What year was that?” He asked. Annalise looked at him cock-eyed and he added quickly, “When your mom died.”

            “Ninety-Three.” Annalise flexed her hands around the back of his chair. “April twelfth, nineteen-ninety-three.”

            “Do you have a computer I could borrow?”

            “ _Yeah_. What century do you think this is?” Annalise stalked into her bedroom and came back out a minute later with a laptop tucked under her arm. She plugged it into the wall and set it up in front of Sam, leaning over to connect the adapter, hair hanging in a curtain between them.

            Good God. She was gorgeous.

            Sam shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Thanks.”

            “Uh-huh.” She left the computer booting up and went back to the bar counter. “So, what happened to you, Winchester?”

            “Uh.” He blinked, face scrunching up. “Sorry?”

            “Well, last time you were in town, you lied about your family. Lied about helping me. Now you’re back and it’s like you’re this big, mushy teddy-bear or something. What changed?”

            “I was…” Sam’s gaze rolled slowly. “Missing something. Something really important, I guess it was a…a part of who I was. But I got it back, thanks to my brother. I’m just trying to start over, y’know, make amends. That kinda thing.”

            Annalise laughed humorlessly. “You picked a hell of a case to start with.”

            “What makes you say that?”

            She avoided his eyes, spinning her coffee mug on the counter.

            Sam watched her until the computer booted up; then he clicked into the internet and started researching local papers.

            It took a lot of digging to find articles from ninety-three. He was four Excedrin heavier and starting to worry about the prolonged functionality of his liver under that many drugs when he got down to the right year. And then it was like picking things apart with a fine-toothed comb. Some of the articles were about the deaths—about Annalise. He noticed she was keeping several good feet of space between herself and the computer, staring through something Sam couldn’t see.

            More obituaries. A new community office downtown.

            An expensive suburb opening its exclusive gates to the public on January first.

            Sam clicked in, skimmed the article, digested the gist of it and wrote down what he felt was important; it all sank in with that déjà-vu feeling that told him he’d heard this before. Like he was leaving himself a trail of breadcrumbs from the last time he’d worked this case.

            “All right.” He finally snapped the laptop shut and looked at Annalise. “I think I got a lead.”

            She shook her head and met his gaze. “What’d you find?”

            “Four months before your mom died, a new suburb opened on the opposite end of the city. A lot of new money coming in. Young money. You never know, sometimes…weird people move in. They can start something. Sometimes without even knowing it. Might not be a curse…could be a spirit that’s targeting your family for some reason. I’ll have to see what checks out.”

            Annalise nodded, running her tongue over her lower lip thoughtfully. “What’s the name of the suburb?”

            “Uh,” Sam checked what he’d scrawled on a napkin beside the laptop. “Windy Leagues. It’s a few miles out of town.”

            “My mom went to a book club out there, once or twice.” Annalise said. “She had this friend, Macy Dawes. I saw her a couple times after my mom died. Maybe she can help.”

            “One way to find out.” Sam said. He paused, scrambling for why that name sounded familiar. “Did I talk to her last time?”

            Annalise shrugged and crossed her arms. “You didn’t exactly let me in on your job, Winchester. You’d get the information you needed and then you’d ditch me. For hours. And you never told me why.”

            Sam stood up, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair. “Listen, Annalise. Thanks for helping me. I know it can’t be easy for you to trust me. Not after…” He trailed off, looking away, licking his suddenly dry lips. He met her gaze again. “Just, thanks.”

            “Sure.” Annalise hesitated, tapping her toe lightly against the hardwood floor and looking at him frankly. “I’m not getting out of this curse, am I?”

            Sam didn’t glance away…wondering if she’d asked him this before. Wondering what his answer had been. “Yes, you are. I’ll do whatever it takes, Annalise. But you’re gonna get your life back.”

            “That’s a nice sentiment.” She stood up and cleared her throat. “Do me a favor? If you don’t find any solid leads on what did this to me, don’t bother coming back.”

            Sam felt that one sink like a blade between his ribs. A sense like failure or victory was balanced on his shoulders. It sucked. “Yeah. Whatever you say.”

            She jerked her chin at the door. “Get out.”

            Sam backed up a few steps, hesitating. “Remember what I said about—”

            “Yeah, I know, the bald guy wants to kill me. Don’t worry, I know how to disappear. He’s not gonna find me.”

            Sam wanted to insist, tell her to get as far from Memphis as she could. But the first time he’d brought it up she’d dug her heels into the mud and flat-out refused. And the last thing Sam needed right now was to alienate her.

            “Be careful.” He said quietly.

            She didn’t answer him.

 

 

            Windy Leagues was picturesque in the middle of the night, like something straight out of a Hallmark Christmas Card—even though Christmas had already come and gone. Sam cruised in through the webbed iron front gates with the heat blazing, feeling like the cold was eating away inside of him. He hadn’t been able to really warm up since his flashback to Hell.

            He capped a lid on that thought. It had already distracted him enough.

            An alias and a call in to the local police station had put him in touch with Macy Dawes’ address. It was a little late for a visit, but Sam didn’t think he could stand sitting around for another night waiting to kick the case into overdrive. He was racing against more than his grandfather now—there were these memories, gnawing under the surface. Little things his weeks in Hell had awakened. Memories he’d sooner forget, but now that the light was shed on them all he could see were the memories and the huge shadows they cast over everything.

            He just had to remind himself that Dean’s death had been an intricate, brilliant farce constructed by Lucifer to twist and torment Sam’s mind. His brother was still out there, probably hunting, and while Sam’s scars were as real as Dean’s death had seemed to be, it was behind him.

            He’d made a promise to his brother. No scratching the wall. Samuel had already forced his hand on it once; Sam was getting back on track.

            He pulled up outside the home in question and cased it in one glance: Stepford, bigger than the usual white-picket fence deal, two stories. Totally Hallmark. The kind of place Sam used to dream about having, back before reality had chewed up his dreams and spat them out in a fiery, bloody mangled mess.

            Sam shoved the door open and climbed out into the frigid night; arms crossed against the chill that bit down into his bones, Sam hurried across the crunchy, frosty lawn and up the porch steps, ringing the doorbell with his thumb. Then he waited, shifting from foot to foot and rubbing his hands together to circulate warmth through his body.

            The door opened and a woman stood blinking up at him, looking surprised and maybe a little unnerved to have him standing on her porch after dark; she was a few inches shorter than he was, but something about the look on her face made Sam feel like they were measuring the same.

A jolt of recognition speared him, rooting him to the spot.

He knew this woman. Black silver-streaked hair, sun-lined face. He’d crossed paths with her before, the last time he’d been in town.

She cleared her throat to get his attention. “Can I help you?”

            “Ma’am, my name is Sam Winchester.” Sam said, trying to sound as friendly as he could when his teeth were about to start chattering. “Are you Macy Dawes?”

            “That I am.” She smiled. “I remember you. You paid me a visit at my place of work last year, asking questions, but you left in an awful hurry. What can I do for you, Mister Winchester?”

            “It’s about the Stetsons. I just have a few questions to ask you, if that’s all right.”

“Well, I’m not sure how much help I can be, but I’ll be willing to try.” Macy looked him over carefully, frowning. “You look like you’re freezing. Come inside!”

            She sidestepped and Sam ducked in, nodding to her with a brief smile. He stood in the foyer still shivering a little bit, and Macy Dawes stepped up behind him.

“Can I take your jacket?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” Sam shrugged out of it and she hung it on the coat-rack beside the door, then motioned for him to follow her. She led him to a high-roofed dining room, the table set with a feast. Sam eyed it suspiciously, while Macy pulled out a chair and sat down.

            “Well?” She said when Sam didn’t move from the doorway. “This food won’t all eat itself!”

            “Looks like you’re expecting somebody.”

            “I was. My husband, Ronald, he’s being kept overtime at work.” Macy pointed to the chair beside hers. “It can’t hurt you to eat, can it?”

            Sam held his ground. “I really can’t stay that long. I’m sorry. I just had a few questions to ask you.”

            Macy stared at him just long enough that Sam’s skin started to prickle. Then she shrugged, picked up her napkin and arranged it in her lap, and served herself up a forkful of some kind of pot roast.

            “Well, then, ask away.” She said with about half the enthusiasm she’d had before.

            Sam cleared his throat. “How long have you lived in this neighborhood?”

            “Almost twenty years now. We moved here from Wichita.”

            “Did you ever notice any strange activity in the neighborhood? Certain people with upswings of good luck that no one could pinpoint? Maybe…strange, unexplained deaths?” When Macy shook her head, Sam pressed in. “What about the lights around the block? Ever notice them flickering on and off for no reason?”

            “These are…very odd questions.” Macy laughed.

            “Please, just…bear with me.” Sam said.

            “Well, I can tell you this much: this neighborhood is completely normal, Mister Winchester. We’ve never had a complaint filed or a raised voice.”

            Sam had a scripted list of routine questions on the tip of his tongue; but when he glanced down at Macy’s hands, the rest of the questions flew out the window.

            “That’s a pretty interesting ring.” He commented, nodding to the round black jewel on the woman’s finger; the surface was marbled and cracked in dizzying swirls. She glanced down at it and smiled.

            “Ronald had quite the taste in engagement rings.” She looked up at him. “Thank you for noticing, Mister Winchester.”

            Sam smiled slightly. “It looks pretty cut up.”

            “Well, when you’ve been married thirty years, your old odds and ends tend to see some wear.” Macy said, her tone final.

Something was itching at the back of Sam’s mind, and for once it wasn’t a suppressed memory or a headache. Just something that was bothering him. He pushed it aside for the moment. “How well did you know the Stetsons?”

“Well, we were close. But it was only a few months after I met her that poor Marianne had that stroke.”

“Stroke.” Sam echoed.

“Yes, and for someone so young! It was a tragedy. Annalise was there, she saw the whole thing.”

That itchy feeling kicked up a notch. “Have you noticed any neighborhood animals going missing lately?”

Macy sighed. “You know, you were a very focused, driven young man the last time I saw you. So straightforward and direct with your questions. I admired that about you. But I’m afraid I haven’t learned anything more about Annalise’s family since then, so these roundabout questions really aren’t necessary.”

            “Right.” Sam said, trying to hide his disappointment. “Well, I forgot a lot of the details, so if you wouldn’t mind telling me again—?”

            “Mister Winchester.” She interrupted him. “I know this will seem an odd thing for me to say, but I said to you the last time you visited me, and I’ll say it again: there’s no point in what you’re doing. You clearly couldn’t find your answers before, and I doubt you’ll find them anytime soon.”

            Sam frowned. “What do you mean?”

            “I know what you think happened. Some sort of mass murder, some dashing tale of adventure and conspiracy. But it was nothing more than a family spinning out of control after their matriarch died.” Macy shrugged delicately. “Besides, I shouldn’t think it will matter one way or another, before long. “

            “It matters to me.” Sam said stiffly.

            “It matters to you, because _Annalise_ matters to you. But she’s not stable, Mister Winchester. I tried everything I could to help her, but she refuses every offered hand. Locks herself away in that apartment of hers and refuses to come out for a soul. She blames herself for everything—for her family’s deaths, for her friends who’ve died.”

            “You don’t think it’s a pretty big coincidence?”

            “I believe it is just that: coincidence. A sweet girl who’s fallen on an extraordinary bit of bad luck. And I know it’s driving her mad.”

            “So why not try to help her?” Sam demanded.

            “I have. I’ve offered to take her to counseling. I’ve loaned her dozens of books. But I know that girl, and I know that once her mind’s made up, nothing will turn her back.” She took a bite of the roast, chewed, swallowed. “She’s going to do it, you know.”

            Sam’s throat tightened. “Do what?”

            “You know. _It_.” Macy blinked at him. “She’s going to take the plunge. Her last curtain call, her swan song, if you will.” She rolled her eyes. “She’s going to commit suicide, Mister Winchester. Because she believes she’s a threat to the people she loves, and she’ll do anything to protect anyone who’s left.”

            Sam’s shoulders tightened. “She’s not going to kill herself.”

            “I don’t mean to be rude, but you hardly know the girl. I know who you are, Sam Winchester, you told me yourself the last time you were in town. You’re a journalist, studying strange deaths nationwide. And yes, Memphis has had its fair share of deaths. But while your apparent concern is admirable, it won’t change anything.”

 Sam’s nostrils flared. “I can stop her.”

            “Are you sure you want to?” Macy raised an eyebrow. “You know, just after you left town last year, Annalise came to me. She was heartbroken, just a _mess_. She told me what you said to her.” When Sam didn’t move, Macy sighed. “Don’t act as though you don’t remember. When she told you she was considering suicide, you told her to go ahead, because her situation was hopeless in any case.”

            A cold deeper than the ice under his skin perforated Sam’s veins. He leaned hard against the doorway. “I said—?”

            “I don’t know what’s kept her alive all these months. Fear, I’m sure. But the girl’s wasting away. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

            “No one else is dying because of this.”

            “Talk to her all you want, Mister Winchester. But I doubt it will do anyone much good anymore. Least of all her.”

            “If you knew she was suicidal, why didn’t you get her some help?”

            “I’ve already told you, I tried. But she’s a legal adult, and I had no proof other than how well I know the girl. She’s refused treatment again and again. There’s not much I can do now but pray and stand aside.”

            Sam snorted contemptuously, glaring at her. “Look, I believe in prayer. But when a problem this big is standing in front of you, you’ve gotta use your _head_.”

            Macy snapped a glare onto him, and right then Sam knew he’d crossed a line.

            “Get out of my house, Mister Winchester.” She slapped her napkin down on the table and dropped her gaze, rearranging her silverware, avoiding his eyes. “And don’t forget your jacket.”

            Line after line. Sam just kept crossing them.

            He did a very Dean-like thing when he got back into the cab of the truck.

            He swore at the top of his lungs.

 


	5. Chapter 5

_January 6 th, 2011_

_Number Ten Main Apartments, Memphis, Tennessee_

Sam slammed on the breaks outside the complex just after midnight.

            He climbed out, kicked the truck door shut and took the stairs up to Annalise’s apartment running. He knocked on the door—waited—knocked again.

            She opened up, hair a mess, eyes red-rimmed. “Tell me it’s good news.”

            “Annalise.” Sam said, fighting for calm. “Are you planning to _kill_ yourself?”

            She rolled her eyes. “I’ll take that as a _no_.” She started to slide the door shut. “Get bent, Winchester.”

            “No!” Sam slammed a hand against the doorpost and Annalise flinched, obviously startled, maybe a little scared. Sam pitched his voice low. “I’m not going anywhere. You understand me? I swore I was going to help you.”

            “Yeah, bang-up job, buddy. I’m not feeling any different, though. So, how’d that question-and-answer session with Macy go? Find out anything about bad things happening in that suburb?”

            Sam tilted his head to one side, gaze sliding away from hers, and Annalise snorted, rubbing a hand through her hair.

            “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She stepped back. “Goodbye, Winchester.”

            Sam braced his hands on the doorposts. “You didn’t answer my question.”

            Annalise went still, staring at him, maybe even through him. Not moving. Sam couldn’t even tell if she was breathing.

            “Do you know how it feels?” She demanded. “By the time I figured out there was something _wrong_ with me, I’d already killed my mom. My dad. And all three of my sisters. All within six weeks.”

            “Annalise—”

            “I can’t _leave_ my apartment. I have to watch every word I say, or someone else might drop _dead_. The few relationships I’ve actually had, everyone leaves me because I can’t tell them I—” She broke off, head twisting to one side, breathing hard and fast through her nostrils. Then she looked back at him, and the dark pool of despair in her eyes hit Sam like a physical blow. “I just want it to be over. Don’t you get it? This isn’t living. It’s like being trapped in this shadow world.”

            “It can get better.” Sam said softly.

            “No, it can’t.” She shook her hair back with a flat, grim smile. “You were right, Winchester. You were right the first time you said it. This needs to just be over. It’s the only way I can protect the friends I haven’t already killed.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t going to do it until you showed up again. I guess you’re a Godsend.”

            Sam had faced suicidal people before. He knew the bluster talk, the people who were looking for attention. And then there were the ones who were really building themselves up for it. Steeling their hearts for death.

            He didn’t need five seconds of thinking to know which category this girl was in. She’d been running from this for months. Terrified. And now he’d shown back up—someone who had hurt her, told her to kill herself—and he was offering her what probably looked like and maybe even _was_ false hope.

            He’d pushed her to the end of her rope. One more step and she’d be swinging from it.

            “Annalise. What I said before,” Sam said quietly. “It’s not true. Okay? There’s something going on here that I didn’t see before. But once I find it, if I can break this curse, you can have your life back. I promise.”

            “You had your chance. And you didn’t find anything.” Annalise straightened. “Get off my doorstep, Winchester.”

            “Annalise, wait.” Sam put his hand on the door. “Look. At least let me drive you to the hospital. You can get some help.”

            She laughed once, derisively. “Right! I’d sooner call the police then let you lock me in a padded cell.” She glared at him. “You know what happened last time you were in Memphis? You took me all over town. Tried to get in my _pants_. Then you come back from a night out by yourself and tell me you’re leaving. I try to stop you, and you know what happens next?”

            Sam stared at her, blinking, a black oozing memory seeping through and falling into place, throbbing behind his left eye.

            “I hurt you.”

            “Slammed me up against the wall.” Annalise said sharply. “Told me to go right ahead and _kill_ myself, because I wasn’t your problem anymore.”

            “Look, I didn’t—”

            “Get away from my door, Winchester. Or I’ll call the cops and tell them exactly what you did to me. And I have pictures to back it up.”

            Sam stared at her, desperate, feeling like he was backing up against a wall. Or the edge of a cliff. “Don’t do this.”

            “You try to call anyone, I’ll know it was you.”

            She slammed the door in his face.

            “Anna—Annalise!”

            He heard the thumping bass of the music again, cranked up loud this time.

            He headed back downstairs, pulling out his phone on the way. Going for the number of the only person he trusted not to come to Memphis.

            The phone rang. Five times. Sam felt like he was going to flip out.

            “Sam?”

            “John.” Sam blew out a sharp breath. “Listen, I need your help. I need you to look into my dad’s memories. Tell me if he ever faced a curse that could make someone a kind of—walking stigma.”

            “You mean thoughts or trigger words? Like what we saw in Vermilion?” The Shifter demanded.

            “Yeah. There’s a case I’m working, this girl…any time she tells someone she loves them, they drop dead.”

            “It’s rare, but it’s not unheard of.” John replied. “There’s a million different curses out there, Sam. Triggers like that, though…that sounds like a demon.”

            “A demonic curse?” Sam echoed. “Dean and I tracked down a coven that was being led by a demon a few years ago.” Sam sucked in a breath between his teeth; pain burst behind his eyes, a flash of fire lighting in the darkness. “Ahh…”

            “Sam? You all right?” John demanded.

            Sam leaned against the door of the truck, tilting his head back and squinting his eyes shut. “I’m fine.” He rocked his head down. “So if there’s a demon behind this curse, can I stop it?”

            “Only way to find out. Send the bastard back to hell.” John said. “Your dad never went up against one of these things himself, but lore says that you can stop a demonic curse if you get to it in time.”

            “Which means _finding_ the demon.” Sam said bleakly.

            “You need my help, Sam?”

            “No, I’ve got this one.” Sam glanced over his shoulder, back toward the apartment complex. Praying Annalise wasn’t already acting out on her threats. “I gotta go. Thanks, John.”

            “Anytime.”

            Sam dropped the call, climbed into the truck and headed for the motel.

 

 

            He didn’t sleep all night. Calling up places. Getting coroners’ reports. Researching the notes he’d taken from Annalise’s history, comparing them to new ones. And getting nowhere.

By morning, the panic and the headache were crashing down in full force. Sam paced, dragging his hands back through his hair; sliding a hand down his face; he punched a hole through the drywall. Turned a complete circle, looking at all the writing on the walls until it felt like it was burned on behind his eyes.

            He needed to find out who was behind this curse, break it, and get back to Annalise before she shattered completely. Find the demon—kill it. He had Ruby’s knife. Or use the ritual to send it back to hell. But cases like this sometimes took days, and that was with Dean helping him. When he wasn’t backed up against the wall, against the cliff, with Samuel on one side and Annalise on the other and him strapped down in the middle trying to dig his way out.

            Samuel. If his grandfather went looking for Annalise, at this point she’d probably welcome his bullet to her heart. But that didn’t fit into what Sam had always been taught. What their dad had taught them: saving people. Hunting things. What was the point of one without the other? It was in Sam’s blood—his mom had been a hunter. And his dad had raised him on it.

            And what was the _point_ of all that if he couldn’t fix what he’d set into motion eight months ago?

            Sam grabbed the flimsy metal bed and flipped it over, smashing it against the wall. He pressed both fists to his forehead with a growl of fury in the back of his throat—then stopped.

            He knew what he was supposed to do. Had known. Since before he’d gotten here. Since Vermilion, when they’d been in the warehouse on Christmas and he’d first gotten a flash of this place.

            Slow, like he was sludging through mud, Sam walked into the bathroom. Bracing his hands on the edges of the sink, he looked into a mirror for the first time in over a week. Not just a passing glance…but staring, hard. At himself.

            Sleepless circles like shadows under bloodshot eyes; face hollow. He hadn’t eaten in two days. Eyes squinted slightly against the pain.

            When his gaze slid out of focus, something rippled into existence behind him. And without trying to get a pinpoint on it, Sam knew what it was. It’d been stalking his reflection for weeks.

            Lucifer. Looking like he was reclining against the wall behind Sam. Stories said mirrors could reveal what was in your soul—so maybe Sam was tarnished, blemished from taking the devil inside. Or Lucifer was an infection in the wounds he’d created, his presence, a living enigma inside of Sam, carried around with him wherever he went.

            Whatever the case. For the first time in weeks, Sam wasn’t looking away. He drank in the sight of that fallen angel behind his shoulder, accepting the fact that this was going to be a part of him. As long as he was holding out, at long as he was trying to stay one step ahead of the memories. He’d always end up in front of a mirror, always seeing the devil behind him.

            Sam balled his hand into a fist, and punched the glass.

            It buckled and caved, spitting out shards that sliced into Sam’s knuckles and barely missed his chest, crashing and breaking and splintering into the sink. Sam stepped back, back up against the wall, put his shoulders to it and slid down until he was sitting, grinding the heel of his hand against his eye. The headache was screaming bloody murder inside of his head.

            He didn’t have time to research. Didn’t have time to retrace his footsteps. This case, all of it—he’d done it before. He’d found something big enough to send him packing. Not the demon, even if there was one. He’d been fearless without a soul, careful and calculating. But he’d skipped town. Left a case unsolved. And for what? Even Samuel didn’t seem to know.

            Samuel.

            Sam dropped his hands to the floor, leaned his head back against the wall, legs splayed out in front of him. The fluorescent light guttered overhead. The fan in the main part of the motel room, hanging over the bed—its blades spinning, a steady but soft _whump-whump, whump-whump_.

            It reminded Sam of the panic room. Of waking up alone, a needle taped into his arm. Of calling hoarsely for his brother, gripped with the fear that his brother was dead, dead because of Lucifer. Thinking maybe this was finally Heaven. Getting up. Walking slowly up the stairs. And the shock at seeing his Dean alive, actually alive, after everything Lucifer had told him, after what he’d done and seen.

            And Dean telling him, flat out, that scratching the wall could and probably _would_ lead to Sam becoming a brain-dead vegetable, good for nothing other than lubricating the floor with his saliva.

            Well, that was grim.

            And it was too damned bad.

Because, after twenty-eight years of being taught to put the people first and keep fighting no matter what hit—Sam was done. He was beyond done putting his own wellbeing first. There was a girl planning to kill herself if he didn’t _do something_. Now.

            “Sorry, Dean.” Sam muttered; clenching his fists, he shut his eyes.

            It was amazing how easy it came to him, like following a bright, infected pulsing gash right back to its source. To the wall, like it was physical entity living inside of him. Real smoke and real mirrors, drywall crumbling, infecting his brain. Sam poked around the edges of it—the flashes he remembered. Macy and Annalise. Carving Dean’s name into the wall. A sandwich shop. His hands around a girl’s throat.

            He grabbed onto that, to all the memories where there was a blank, silent, windy hollow of nothing: no feeling, no regret, just a passion that didn’t even really exist. It was the same instinctual need of any natural-born predator.

            Sam latched on to that.

            And ripped the wall wide open.

            Hell—in an unconscious body, in memories inside a dream—that was one thing. There was a thin smokescreen there, like a bubble between Sam’s physical self the memories of what had been done to him.

            This was worse. This was joining _feeling_ , physically, to what he’d gone through. And his conscious mind had a more definitive grasp of the concept—like the difference between kicking a dog and kicking a human. Dogs had pure feeling; humans had words, had a deeper sense of what was happening to them.

            And right now Sam was completely, utterly, breakable and human.

            He listed to one side, the steady sound like a growl building in his chest, then bursting from his mouth in a pained, jagged cry. He slumped to one elbow, grabbing for his head—then his arm jerking, falling back against his side. His elbow gave out, smashing him down on the bathroom tiles sideways, and he started to twist and writhe spasmodically, limbs doing a frenetic frenzied dance.

            Images popped like stars behind his eyes: Hell. Adam. Annalise. A kid’s tearstained face. A broken truck overgrown with weeds. A hand coming for him out of the darkness. Vampire fangs. A spirit’s semi-corporeal form. The slick feeling of blood on his hands. Annalise. Annalise again.

            Sam’s back arched, head thrown back, grunts and moans of pain sliding out between his clenched teeth. His head wasn’t just aching—it was cracking into pieces, skull fragments bludgeoning, driving in deep, into the most vulnerable parts of his brain.

            But he sank everything he had into those memories of Annalise, dragging them out, throwing them into sharp relief like a movie in front of his eyes.

            He saw a shuddering leap of movement; feeling himself in the memory, moving in close to Annalise, sliding his arms around her waist. Her hands tangled in his hair, her lips close to his. Pushing her roughly against the wall when she refused him, capturing her mouth in a kiss.

            Sam pushed in deeper.

            Flicking book pages, fast, slamming one volume shut, taking a long drink from a bottle of Scotch. Wasted, totally wasted. Sitting with his back to the wall in the motel room, staring at the wall. Ripping off part of the paper. Knife in hand. Frantically carving, his mind jostled with alcohol.

            Stabbing the point of the blade into the wall. “ _Dean_!”

            Driving to Windy Leagues. The feel of a humid summer breeze on his skin. Storm was coming. Definitely. Maybe just about to break. Sam half-glided up the steps to the Dawes’s house. Feeling the calculated prickle in his mind as he met Macy for the first time. Here, at her house. Not at her place of work.

            She’d lied.

            Sam scrabbled back to the present, gasping for every rickety breath that wheezed through his lungs. “Unnn…ggh.” He choked over the guttural rasp of his own breaths, flipping onto his side. His muscles had at least relaxed from the stiff mortal coil of the seizure, allowing him to move.

            He’d almost started to crawl for the wall when another paralyzing spasm hit him, throwing him flat, then yanking him, dragging at his limbs as a wash of white covered his vision.

            Bursting into a dark room. Chanting, low and guttural, sounding off in his ears. A gun in his hands. A warm, buttery voice, soothing him, saying: “We can work out some sort of a deal. I have something you want. Something you need.”

            Macy’s eyes, flicking black, settled on him as she twisted the ring around her finger.

            Sam’s arched back finally relaxed, the spasm sucking out of him like poison from a wound. For a few seconds he lay on his side, limbs splayed and shifting in irregular sweeps as the feeling trickled back into his fingertips. And with it, the cacophony in his head, like someone was blasting off a cannon in the hollow, empty puddle where his brain used to be.

            “Sam.”

            He didn’t really hear that voice. It was a ringing echo in his head. Sounded like his dad; like a memory.

            “Sam, remember what I taught you _._ ”

            Right. If the enemy got you down on the ground and pinned you, you were as good as dead. You had to get up, even when you couldn’t. Had to keep fighting even when there wasn’t any fight left in you.

            Sam pulled his right arm under his body, then his left. The motion sent the whole bathroom spinning around him. “Nnnn…” He closed his eyes and became immediately, sharply aware of how badly his whole body was shaking. “Nyuh!” He choked out a breath, head and shoulders slumping. “Gah.” He sank back down, head in the crooks of his elbows, arms outstretched.

            One thing was definitely clear to him: Macy was in on the curse. And not just her. Had to be a coven. That many voices…had to be. The one thing his memories couldn’t tell him was _why_. Why had they targeted Annalise?

            Sam’s stomach plunged. Annalise. No wonder she’d hated him. He’d caught one glimpse of the way he’d acted toward her and it had sickened him. She’d pushed him away to protect him, and he’d gone after her like a wolf hell-bent on a scrap of meat.

            Sam sat up, slowly, grabbed the edge of the sink and pulled himself to his feet. He swayed, dizzy, staggering, plunging his arms up to the elbows in the broken glass inside the sink. He yelled the pain out, his back hitting the wall, arms curling up protectively. His blood was already starting to dot the floor.

            _No_. Winchesters didn’t go down that easily. Winchesters didn’t go down without a fight. And the fight was just starting.

            Sam pulled himself around the corner, eyes fixed on the duffle he’d left in the corner. His jacket on top of it. His phone in the pocket.

            Sam didn’t realize he was falling until his knees hit the floor; next thing he knew he was throwing up, violently, stomach-sucking-up-into-his-lungs bad. Stomach juice and blood. Where the hell was the blood coming from?

            He grabbed the windowsill, hauled himself back onto his feet, and kept going; shoulder sliding on the wall. Pitching to his knees again, throwing up more. And throwing up. And throwing up until he had no choice but to crawl through his own vomit to get there, throwing up from the pain in his head and the weight on his chest. His vision flooding with white icy fire as the ringing in his head got louder and his strength drained out with his stomach.

            He threw up until he didn’t have anything left inside of him but raw entrails and sick, retching dry heaves, nose and eyes streaming, throat congested with vomit. He finally got to the jacket, his blood-slick fingers fumbling with the phone pad. Found the old number in his contacts. And dialed.

            Threw up again.

            The line picked up. “The hell are you calling me for?”

            “Samuel.” Sam rasped. “Found the coven. Witches. They’ve got a demon. It’s inside one of them…Macy Dawes. Have to…send it back. Break the curse.”

            “Boy, are you out of your mind?”

            “J-Just listen to me!” Sam said, breathless and shivery. “We can still stop this. Get to the coven. _Break the curse_.”

            “Why didn’t you sweep up this mess last time?”

            Sam closed his eyes. “I don’t know.”

            Samuel grumbled under his breath. “Gimmie an address.”

            Sam did, and Samuel hung up, with a scurried promise to sort this mess out. Sam thumped his head back against the wall, swallowing hard, waiting for the headache and the ringing in his ears to subside. But it didn’t; it was just as bad as Essex, it was worse, it was scaring the crap out of him. The flashes kept coming, more than he’d wanted to know, more than he could handle at once. The feeling of some girl’s naked body in his arms. The pulse of Annalise’s blood in her throat. The fervor of searching, ripping that library apart, looking for clues.

            Sam’s fingers curled around his jacket.

            His case. His promise. He’d cut out Dean, cut out Bobby. Sworn to fly solo on this. And at the grand finale, he was handing over the props to someone he didn’t trust.

            Sam dragged the coat onto one slit-up arm; pushed the other one through, ignoring the chafe of the scratchy fabric on his wounds. He clambered to his feet, checked the rounds in his gun, and headed for the door.

            The vomiting had stopped; but the lights in the hallway were so bright, they blinded him. Throwing up an arm to shield his eyes, face contorted in a rictus of pain, Sam felt his way one clumsy step at a time down the stairs to the ground floor of the motel; through the lobby; back outside, where it was at least mercifully overcast.

            Sam dragged himself into the cab of the truck, one arm curled around his heaving, throbbing midsection. He jammed the key into the ignition and prayed to God that he’d be able to stay conscious long enough to do what needed to be done.

            Took four Excedrin.

            And punched the gas to the floor.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

_January 6 th, 2011_

_Windy Leagues Suburb, Memphis, Tennessee_

At least he could see.

            That was the small favor Sam was bearing in mind as he pulled through the front gates of Windy Leagues for the second time in twenty-four hours. At least he could still see the road gobbled up under the truck’s tires, even if seeing everything somehow made his headache even worse. And his sense of balance was shot to hell; the whole world looked like it was tipping to the right every few minutes.

            But he was here. He was here and he wasn’t backing down. Not a chance.

            In the middle of an overcast, foggy day, the suburb looked a lot less like a Hallmark Card, and more like something out of a teen vampire flick. Sam slowed to a crawl in the neighborhood, not really sure if his reflexes would provide for him to slam on the brakes fast enough if someone came jumping out of the fog and into the road.

            A few blocks away from Macy Dawes’s house, Sam almost rear-ended the van that appeared in front of him like a phantom coming from the mist. He did have to slam the brakes on for that one, and the truck rocked to a stop bumper-to-back-end with that van; the van that he recognized.

            He dragged in a few struggling breaths, pulled out his gun and checked it just to put himself easy. Something routine, simple, to keep him grounded in right now. To stop the flashes dancing at the corners of his eyes.

            Sam shoved the truck door open and got out, aching arms tucked in close to his body, shoulders hunched against the icy mist. Leaning back against the truck, he watch Samuel and Gwen approach him through the fog; Samuel looked tense and unamused, Gwen with worry in her large eyes.

            “What’d you call me for, if you were planning on handling this yourself?” Samuel snapped, stopping in front of him.

            Sam shook his head slowly and looked away, breathing through his open mouth to fight his still-pitching stomach, his forehead furrowed with pain. “Can’t take on a coven alone.”

            “You look like hell.” Gwen commented. “What happened this time?”

            “The same thing that happened before.” Sam clapped an angry glare on his grandfather, who pointedly crooked the shotgun in his elbow and checked the rounds. Sam slid his gaze to Gwen. “Worse this time.”

            “Maybe you should sit this one out. You look half-dead.”

            Sam felt like it; no, feeling like Hell was a pretty good summary. He also didn’t have a choice anymore.

            “We don’t have much time.”

            “You got that right.” Samuel racked the shotgun closed one-handed and jerked his head. “Should go around back.”

            They took what seemed to Sam like the long way around, cutting between houses and scaling fences. By the time they’d reached the backyard of the house behind the Dawes’s, Sam was sweating profusely.

            “Good grief, it looks like it’s raining just on you.” Gwen commented as they stopped to make a sweep on the house from a distance; Sam swiped his sleeve across his forehead, fighting the nausea in his stomach that had changed to something sharper, harder, like a box-cutter twisting his insides. Like the rest of this wasn’t bad enough.

            “I’m fine,” Sam muttered.

            “If you two are done jaw-flapping,” Samuel cut in. “Looks like there are a few people inside.”

            “Curtains are drawn. How can you tell?” Gwen asked.

            “One moved the drapes; saw two other shadows. So we’re at least dealing with three. Probably humans.” He looked at Sam. “We take ’em alive.”

            Sam nodded; he didn’t have a problem with that, not if they could sever the witches’ ties to the demon they were serving. “On thr— _gahh_!”

            He pitched onto his knees, the box-cutter feeling ripping open something worse inside of him.

“Good grief!” Gwen made a grab to hold him up but Sam collapsed onto his hands and knees anyway, spitting up blood. “This a habit of yours, Sam? Sam!”

Sam gritted his teeth, feeling like he was being dragged behind a truck across lava-hot coals. Everything was on fire—knives inside of him, fire outside. Choking on his own blood—again.

He felt the pain at the same time he got a flash of a memory—something he hadn’t felt, but he’d seen it.

            “My jacket!” He spat. “Check the…pockets…guh!”

            Gwen knelt beside him, grabbing his shoulder, sitting him up as much as she could and reaching into his pocket, yanking out his phone—then into the other one, pulling out something smaller than the palm of her hand, a soft brown cloth-wrapped bundle.

            “Burn it!” Sam bit the words out through his clenched teeth, feeling the rising tide of blood from the back of his throat. Gwen blinked at the bag, frowning. “Gwen!”

            She shook herself, “Okay!”, yanked a lighter out of her pocket, clicked it twice and set fire to the little bag.

            Sam watched it burn, _smelled_ it burning, and the more it burned the looser the grip on his insides became. He eased forward, bracing himself with his arm, hair flopping forward into the grass.

            “Hex bag.” He said.

            “How’d it get in there?” Gwen demanded.

            Sam scanned through his memories, feeling a clench in his chest when he realized he was having a hard time separating his last hunt from this one.

            “I was at her house.” He said suddenly. “Last night.” He picked up his head and looked at Gwen. “She must’ve slipped it in my pocket when she took my jacket.”

            “Why’d she do something like that, I wonder?” Samuel asked, almost snidely.

            “Because she knew who I was.” Sam wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and got slowly to his feet. “She knew I would find her. She was trying to take me out before I had a chance.”

            “She’s about to get an awfully big surprise, then.” Samuel jerked his head. “Now that that little crisis is behind us, let’s move in.”

            Sam hated the way Gwen looked at him when he fell into step behind his grandfather; like she thought he was going to crumble and bust into a thousand fragile pieces. At the same time, it made him feel a little stronger; Sam nodded to her and followed Samuel across the yard.

            They kept out of sight of the windows, stalking the fringe of the yard, then sliding across, up to the back door. Sam took one side, Samuel on the other with Gwen behind him. Pressing his ear to the wall, Sam heard the guttural hum of voices raising the hairs on his arms. The sound could’ve been pulled straight from his memory.

            Samuel held up three fingers and mouthed, _You first_.

            Sam shot him a bitchfaced look, but nodded.

            _One_.

            Sam tightened his grip on the gun.

            _Two_.

            He rocked forward.

            _Three_.

            Sam pulled around, reared back and kicked the door open, dropping low and wedging it open with his arm before it could ricochet and swing shut. Samuel stepped past him, Gwen one step behind, Sam coming up covering their backs—straight through the kitchen, to the front room.

            There were five of them—three women and two men, huddled over a stone slab with a Coptic symbol on it that triggered a firestorm in Sam’s brain. He blinked fast and shook it away, but the symbol felt like it was trying to crawl inside of him.

            Samuel didn’t hesitate. “All of you, on your feet. Now!”

            Most of them did, scrambling, fast, looking freaked out and wary. Whatever they were doing in here, maybe they didn’t believe in its power the way they believed in the guns aimed for their chests.

            Or.

            Sam looked at Macy, the only one still sitting down. Twisting the ring around her finger, over and over again.

            Her eyes locked on him.

            “Samuel.” Sam said, warningly.

            Macy lifted her chin.

            Samuel went flying, smashing back into the wall and crumbling in a heap at its base. Gwen didn’t hesitate, popping rounds into the first two witches before they could make a move. Macy lunged to her feet and Sam stepped into her path, putting himself between her and Gwen.

            “Welcome back, Mister Winchester.” She said.

            “This is over.” Sam snarled, aiming for her heart. “ _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus_ —”

            Macy flipped her wrist and Sam’s legs kicked out from under him; he was yanked backwards, smashing into the bookshelf. It cratered under his weight, his head, shoulder and ribcage glancing off as he fell ass-end on the floor. It took him a second to shake the stars out of his eyes, and by the time he did she was already there.

            This time he didn’t see her move; an invisible force picked him up and launched him into the kitchen, knocking over the fridge, the door bursting up and slamming the back of his head. Sam’s eyes bulged; darkness flooded his vision for a few seconds, and then a very human, hard pointy-toed kick caught him in the temple, snapping his head sideways. He went limp, feeling the blood oozing from his temple.

            Macy knelt, grabbing a fistful of his hair and hauling Sam’s head back. “You’re a few years too late, Mister Winchester. I’ve been in this old gal’s body for a _long_ time. There’s no getting me out without snuffing her out as well. Not unless you,” She held her wrist under his nose. “Had some of your old favorite _poison_.”

            Sam twisted his head weakly away.

            “Oh, I know. Stone cold sober for two years, isn’t that right?” The demon gave his head a savage shake. “Let’s see you make it a whole lifetime. With those veins all squeaky clean. Knowing the _lives_ you could have saved if you didn’t have to use that barbaric knife or those long-winded rituals.”

            Sam dragged his hand through the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, his hand itching across the floor tiles.

            “But, really, what’s the point?” Macy dropped his head back onto the floor and stood up, taking a couple steps away. “You knew what I was before, and you thought leaving me locked in a Devil’s Trap would do the trick. And it did…for a while. But paint wears off. And then those airheaded humans found me and freed me. You had to know they would.”

            Sam pulled himself up onto his hands and knees. “You knew I was a threat. That’s why you slipped the hex bag into my jacket.”

            “I could tell our little agreement was over.”

            “So? Come and get me, bitch.”

            She swung around, eyes tar black, lightless and fierce, and lunged at him.

            Stopping mid-step like she’d hit a barrier.

            Sam sat back on his haunches, smiling a bloody-toothed smile as the Devil’s Trap traced in his own blood froze her in place.

            “I guess old habits die hard.” Sam got painfully to his feet, touching the throbbing, bleeding lump on the back of his head. “Samuel? Gwen? I got her.”

            A few seconds later, Gwen stepped into the kitchen, bleeding from a gash above her eye. “The rest of them are dead.”

            “Humans. All of them.” Samuel added, joining her. “But nasty, cagey bastards.”

            So that made it self-defense.

            Sam met his grandfather’s eyes for a second, then stepped closer to Macy; she was standing arms-crossed inside the small Devil’s Trap barely large enough for both her feet, glaring at him.

            “So clever, Mister Winchester.”

            “Tell us how to break the curse.” Sam said.

            “What curse?” She snapped.

            “On Annalise Stetson.”

            Macy laughed sharply. “What, that little pet-project? I thought she stopped being your problem a long time ago.”

            “How. Do we break it?” Sam repeated slowly, firmly. “’Cause my sources say, sending you straight back to Hell should do the trick.”

            Macy’s eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. “No. I have to break the spell myself. And only I can do it.”

            “Then start talking.” Sam said.

            Macy flicked her hair out of her face. “What do you want to know?”

            “Why Annalise?”

            Macy smiled sharply. “You already know the answer to that.”

            Sam stared at her, long and hard, fast twitching, mouth curling down into a scowl. “Because her mom found out what you were.”

            “Bingo. Gold star for the golden boy.” Macy fixed her eyes on him. “Yes. We cursed the bitch’s daughter. Started out as just a little fun ritual, to test how strong the humans were. But it just got better. And better. All these souls, all for me!” She sounded like a kid on Christmas. It made Sam feel sick just hearing the glee in her voice. “And you know what? Annalise was the most fun. She never even guessed that sweet Macy was the culprit behind her wretched, pathetic existence.”

            Sam knew what this was. He’d had enough demons pulling his strings for enough years to know when they were pressing his buttons to trip him up. “I want you to reverse the spell. Now.”

            “Sure thing, sugar. But first, you’ve gotta let me out.” When Sam didn’t say anything, she added with a shade of impatience. “That’s the deal, Mister Winchester. You let me go, I’ll put your pretty princess back the way she was in her innocent days. Agreed?”

            Sam hesitated, then looked at his grandfather. “You brought Holy Water, right?”

            Samuel pulled out a flask and handed it to Sam; he uncorked it, stepped forward and used the toe of his boot to smear the blood. He aimed the flask at Macy as she stepped out, then knelt and redrew the circle.

            “You try to smoke out of that body, and I’ll put you back inside that trap. Got it?”

            “I’m in the business of self-preservation.” Macy cricked her neck. “Shall we?”

            “No hinky business.” Samuel warned.

            “Of course not.” Macy bowed her head and closed her eyes.

            The Coptic reversal spell felt like it was seeping into Sam’s veins; ever since he’d gotten hopped up on demon blood that first time, he’d felt like that dark language could skim its way under his skin. Like it was trying to make him understand its nuances and beats. Like a song he’d known his whole life, and could sing along to without really paying attention to what he was saying.

            After a minute, maybe a minute and a half, Macy looked up. “There. Your pet’s off the leash.”

            “Why didn’t you just have her do that last time?” Samuel demanded, glancing at Sam. “Woulda saved us a hell of a lot of trouble, son.”

            “Like I said. Business of self-preservation.” Macy answered before Sam could. “I made Mister Winchester here an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

            Face scrunching again, Sam tilted his head to one side. “What?”

            “I _paid you off_ , Mister Winchester. Had the only bargaining tool you had a use for, only thing that could keep you off my ass. So we made a deal: I gave it to you, and you left me to future hunters. Probably didn’t expect it to take this long for someone else to find me, did you?”

            Sam stood staring at her, muscles locking up again.

            “What’d she pay you with?” Samuel asked.

            “An archangel blade.” Sam said softly, the creases in his forehead making him feel like he was ten years older than he actually was. Lines of worry, regret. Uncertainty. “I don’t…I don’t know why.” He looked up at her. “Why did I want it?”

            “That’s the surprise, Mister Winchester. Can’t tell you that.” Macy stretched. “Now. You were about to let me go?”

            Sam lifted his chin. “Right.”

            He smashed his arm under her chin, knocking her back into the Devil’s Trap, his hand sliding to hers and ripping the ring off her finger.

She stared at him with panic and rage as Sam held the ring up. “How stupid did you think I was? Trigger curses with Coptic roots can’t just be reversed; they need a blood base to work. And Annalise’s blood is inside this ring.”

Sam threw the ring on the floor and crushed it with his heel.

A hoarse, inhuman scream ripped out of Macy’s lungs as Sam began the Latin ritual he’d memorized since he was twenty-two, every syllable fast and hard like the kick of a gunshot or the stab of a knife. Macy sank to her knees, still screaming incoherently; and then, finally, a gush of black smoke poured out of her mouth, into the ceiling, and vanished.

            Sam stared down at the body, feeling unsteady until he saw Macy take a deep breath, then another.

            “I’m not making the same mistake twice.” He said quietly. “Never trust a demon.”

            He turned around and saw Samuel and Gwen staring at him, looking a little nervous. Like maybe the things he’d do, deals he’d break to get the job done, now, when he had a soul—maybe that was scaring them.

            “She was a demon.” He said. When they didn’t say anything, Sam headed for the door, head down. “I have to find Annalise.”

            “Sam.” Gwen said, stopping him in the doorway. “Be careful.”

            Sam nodded, and let himself out.

 

 

            Archangel blade. Archangel blade.

            The word was repeating like a chant in Sam’s head the whole drive over.

            He remembered that part, he’d remembered it in the same split-second he’d remembered the ring: showing up at Macy’s. A glittering silver seraph blade in her hands. Gabriel’s. Pawned off the demon black market by Macy after Lucifer had killed his brother and discarded it. She’d told him she’d trade him for it if he’d agree to put the town behind him and never come back. And somehow Sam, soulless, and he shouldn’t have taken a bribe—he’d taken it anyway. Left her, left Annalise to fend for herself against a coven of witches and demon, with her life like a toy in their hands.

            He punched the steering wheel.

            The question he wanted answered now was: where _was_ the archangel blade?

            Sam pulled up outside the apartment complex, climbed out, stopped for a second as the world tipped around him for the fiftieth time that day. He felt like his inner ear had been damaged somehow, and the lump on the back of his head was amassed with the world of his other hurts.

            He took the stairs slow, trying to keep his balance. Like some kind of invalid. God. He was sick of this. He was going straight back to Bobby’s, and he was going to figure out what the hell was going on.

            He knocked on Annalise’s door. “Annalise! Open up. It’s Sam.”

            No answer. No thumping bass music, either. If she’d gone out, it would be a miracle, but—

            “Annalise!” Sam repeated, louder. “We did it! We broke the curse!”

            A faint, fluttering thump from inside.

            Sam stiffened. “Anna—!” He stepped back. “Son of a bitch!” He bolted forward, slamming the door with his shoulder, popping it wide open.

            The bathroom light to his right was on; Annalise was sprawled in the doorway.

            “No…no!” Sam crouched over her, one hand on either side of her body; her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow and slow. Sam checked the bottle beside her head: sleeping pills. No way of knowing how many she’d taken. Or when. “Annalise! Hey!” Sam picked her head up from the floor, cradling the back of her neck.

            To his relief, her eyes blinked open; but her gaze was hazy, nowhere near lucid. She probably couldn’t even see him.

            In that split-second, Sam’s training came flooding back. Some stupid household remedy his dad had come up with for poisoning. Not a cure, but…

            Sam shed off his jacket, the fabric tearing up the scabs on his arms, creating bracelets of blood down his wrists as they started oozing again. He pillowed Annalise’s head and ran into the kitchen, flinging open cabinets and the fridge, hunting up the supplies he needed: mustard, cinnamon, salt, vinegar, and the dredges out of the coffee pot. Throwing them all into a cup, mixing them together. Smelled like crap, and that was probably a good thing.

            Sam darted back into the bathroom and pulled Annalise up, propping her up against his shoulder, pulling her jaw gently open. He shook her as awake as he could—which wasn’t much—and then tipped the remedy down her throat.

            Sam was relieved when her throat constricted, a helpless, infant reaction to the feeling of the sludge entering her mouth. She swallowed a few mouthfuls, gasped, and choked. Sam barely swung her around toward the toilet before she started throwing up—violently. Not as bad as he had in the motel, but still pretty bad, her back arching against his chest. She kept throwing up for four, five minutes, then sank down in a shivering, sweaty heap.

            Sam checked the toilet, gut lurching when he saw how many pills were in there. And wondering how many had already been absorbed into her body.

            Sam didn’t wait; swung her up into his arms, wrapped up in his jacket, and staggered down the stairs, blinking to focus his dizzy, exhausted eyes. He hadn’t slept, hadn’t stopped moving in days. Faced Hell. Faced the coven. Faced his own past. And now this girl was about to die and that was his fault, too.

            Sam settled her in the front seat of the truck, hopped in, and gunned the engine, peeling out, headed for the closest hospital.

            Annalise stirred, picking her head up from the seat. “Winchester.” She said groggily, blinking dazed eyes at him. “I feel like—”

            “It’s okay.” Sam reached over and rested a hand on her ankle. “We did it, Annalise. We broke the curse.”

            She stared at him with eyes still streaming from throwing up. “Sam? Why did you want me to die? I really liked you.”

            A few seconds passed. And nothing happened. Sam didn’t drop dead, but he was holding his breath, waiting for it to happen.

            “Sam.” Annalise insisted. “ _Why_?”

            Sam’s throat closed over. “I didn’t.” He slid his hand away from her. “It’s complicated, Annalise. But that wasn’t me.”

            “Looked like you.” She breathed, her head falling back on the seat.

            Knuckles white, jutting under his skin, Sam poured on the speed.

            His hands around Annalisa’s throat.

            His lips finding hers in a dark room, and her pushing him away.

            _This stopped being my problem yesterday._

 _Just do it. Just kill yourself. You’re a lost cause, anyway_.

            Sam didn’t have any excuses. Any lies. A deal with a demon for personal gain. Annalise’s life, the asking price. And he’d done it. Hadn’t even hesitated. Hadn’t even questioned if it was the right thing. Because inside of him, locked in his soulless, one-dimensional reality, there wasn’t anyone else.

            There was just Sam. And what he wanted. That selfish part, separate from his soul, that had gone for the demon blood. And almost killed Bobby. And told Annalise to end her own life.

            And if she died, it’d be on his head.

            Sam had come to Memphis looking for answers; maybe trying to redeem himself.

            But with this girl dying in the front seat beside him, he realized he’d only learned one thing. And that was how twisted he really was.

            He was staring into a different mirror this time. Realizing the reflection wasn’t the devil beside him. It was the devil inside.

            And he’d never been more grateful that Dean wasn’t there, to watch this last plunge down the slippery slope into realizing what he’d become.

           

 


	7. Epilogue

_January 8 th, 2011_

_King’s Ridge Motel, Memphis, Tennessee_

 

            Sam stood in the middle of the room, looking at the writing on the wall.

            This was the last time he’d be here. But if felt like he was leaving a part of himself ingrained in these walls, inside the shards of the mirror in the sink. He’d done what he could to clean up the vomit from the floor, but even those stains wouldn’t really go away. They’d be a part of this place, same way his memories were.

            Sam had debated calling Bobby, telling him he was coming. But something was holding him back from making that call. He told himself it was self-preservation; he didn’t want Bobby sitting up waiting for him to get there. He didn’t want to be on anyone else’s schedule.

            Truth was. The truth was, he wanted to give himself enough slack on the hanging noose to run the other way. To disappear, if this got to be too much. And it was getting there. It was so close to being _enough_ , Sam could taste it.

            Eyes raw, red-rimmed, he zipped up the duffle, swung it over his shoulder, and turned toward the door.

            Almost ran straight into Samuel.

            Sam jolted, stepping back, lips flaring, jaw clenched. “You—” He held up a hand, then dropped it, glaring. “What…are you doing here, Samuel?”

            “Well, we got the bitch.” Samuel said, crossing his arms and leaning his left shoulder against the wall—standing square between Sam and the door. “A little too late.”

            A sock to Sam’s chest. _Guilt_. “I don’t need you to tell me—”

            “Maybe you _do_ , Sam.” Samuel cut him off. “Maybe you need someone to point out where you went wrong, so you don’t step in the same hole again.”

            “I know what I did. All right?” Sam hitched the duffle higher up onto his shoulder. “And _nothing_ you say is going to make me feel any worse about this than I already do. So why don’t you just…” He broke off, pulled in a deep breath. “Just back off. Please.”

            Samuel’s eyes narrowed. “If you’d’a gotten a move on figuring out what happened sooner, we could’ve stopped what that coven was doing.”

            Sam went still. “You and Gwen—?”

            “Yeah, we tracked down their target. Some spell on a church in town. Place burned with a lotta people inside.”

            Sam’s knees sagged. He put his hand against the wall. “We were too late.”

            “No, son. No, _you_ were too late.” Samuel snapped. “I dunno what you did to wash up those memories, but you shoulda done it when you first got here—not wasted your time researching things you already kn—”

            “I didn’t want to remember!” Sam snarled, something inside of him—not the wall—cracking under the pressure, under the dark fire in his grandfather’s eyes.

            Samuel stiffened. “Come again?”

            “I didn’t want to remember—any of it!” Sam’s voice grew louder with every word. “You know what happens when I scratch the wall? I _remember_ things. I remember what I did. I remember _Hell_. And you _forced_ that on me! So, now,” Sam passed a hand down his face. “Now I’ve gotta live with that. Every day for the rest of my life.”

He closed his eyes, took another deep breath.

            And met Samuel’s furious gaze.

            “But I’m done worrying about that. If this is what it takes, to keep saving people—I’ll do it. I’ll take the wall in my head apart, _brick by brick_ , until there’s nothing left between me and Hell.”

            He shoved past Samuel, heading for the door.

            “Sam. Sam!” A hand grabbed the crook of his elbow. “You don’t get to walk away from what you’ve done. Don’t you turn your back on your family!”

            Sam exploded; swinging around, his fist coming up. Smashing Samuel’s jaw, disengaging his hold and lurching him back against the wall. Sam flexed the brief spurt of dull pain from his knuckles, watching the surprise and hurt flash across Samuel’s face, then give way to the kind of anger Sam had seen before—in the eyes of all the things they hunted.

            When he was kid—not even then. When he’d first started hunting again after Stanford, when their prey would _look_ at him like that, Dean would step in front of Sam. Get between him and whatever wanted to kill him.

            There was no Dean watching his back, this time. It was just Sam and Samuel, staring at one another, tension snapping like a tight wire between them the two of them.

            “You’re not my family.” Sam said, soft and furious. “Dean. Bobby. Castiel. They’re waiting for me. All you care about is bringing mom back. You’re as much a part of what happened to Annalise as I am. You were gonna _kill_ her. Said it was the only thing we could do. You didn’t even look for another way out.”

Samuel swiped the blood from his jaw, straightening up. “Boy, I’m not the one who took a bribe for that girl’s life. You’re just lucky she pulled through. But sitting by that hospital bed for two days doesn’t make you any less guilty.” Samuel looked him up and down, really looked at him—like he was trying to see what Sam really was. “What the hell kind of monster are you?”

 _You’re a sick, freaking monster_.

“Shut up.” Sam snarled, backing toward the door. “Just…stay away from me.”

The world swirled, sucking back into a vortex of black, then pinioning into place like a snapped rubber band. Sam felt for the doorknob at his back, wrenched it open, and escaped with Samuel’s eyes still burning a hole in his back.

The shakes started at the top of the stairs; at the bottom, the sweating. By the time Sam made it to the truck his chest was shrinking and his tongue swelling to fill his mouth. A hundred different striations of images in his mind, like fireworks behind his eyes. Dean Samuel Gwen Christian Mark Annalise Lisa Ben Castiel. Vampires. Werewolves. Faeries. Shapeshifters.

_Monster. Sam, you’re a monster._

_Don’t say that to me! Don’t_ you _say that to me._

_What the hell kind of a monster are you?_

_You’re a sick, freaking monster!_

_I’m in your grapefruit, Sam._

_Look at you. You need the blood._

_It’s okay, Sammy. Drink it. It’ll make you stronger._

He flung the duffle across the front seat and sat, forehead on the steering wheel, waiting for it to pass. Waiting for something to change.

Nothing did; and Sam was so used to that, so used to being stuck in this cage of pain and feeling like he was an alien in his own body, that turning the key in the ignition, heading out for the road—it was just second nature.

A punch of lightning behind his eyes.

_Sam. Sam—Sam!_

He thumped his fist against his forehead. “Gah—hunh!” His breaths hitched up in his throat; the road shrank in front of him, then exploded out, feeling like it was swallowing him up, dragging him down.

He heard dripping water; smelled mold. A glimmer of light flickered somewhere behind his shoulder, fanning a dissolved, erratic beam past him.

A man—not a man. An angel, with dark skin and fierce, glinting eyes.

Raphael.

Leaning in close, his mouth beside Sam’s ear. “Bring me your brother.”

Sam’s hand was already scrabbling for his phone before he could see the road again. He yanked it out, speed-dialed Dean. Heart a solid mass in his throat, teeth scissoring the top of his tongue as he choked down the memories by willpower alone.

Raphael. Something was happening—or had happened. Something Sam had caused. Something involving the archangel.

And Dean.

The phone went to voicemail. Sam checked the rearview mirror, waiting for the automated voice to finish its cycle. “I know what number to press!” Sam hollered. “Dammit, just put me through!”

It finally did. With another glance, Sam changed lanes. “Dean? It’s me. If you get this—something’s happening. I don’t know what. But you have to watch your back, Raphael is—”

The world exploded into a shower of glass, metal bending back on metal as something heavy, an impossible unstoppable force, crashed into the truck broadside, picking it up off the road and flipping it through the air. Sam’s sense of equilibrium scattered into a thousand pieces, flung out the window as the truck struck the ground on the far side of the road, depressing it like tinfoil crumbled in someone’s hand.

Sam’s phone slipped out of his useless fingers. Crackled. And faded.

And Sam faded with it, the last thing he knew the sick, thick feeling of blood flooding his throat as something broke inside of him.

 

* * *

 

 

_"This is the way the world ends  
Not with a bang_

_But a whimper."_ —T.S. Eliot

 

 


End file.
